Most western teachers wouldn’t even consider teaching in southern Thailand, not if they know anything about the area. Rife with violence and attacks by Muslim separatists, it’s been a dangerous place for at least the last decade for almost anyone living or working there. In the last couple of years, however, it’s become even more dangerous if you are a teacher in southern Thailand. That’s because teachers in southern Thailand are being targeted by Muslim separatists — more than 150 Thai teachers have been murdered in the last two years.
Targeting teachers, of course, makes you nothing more than a coward and a crackpot lunatic but that, unfortunately, is what Thai teachers in southern Thailand have to contend with nowadays. If they’re Buddhist, they are in the most danger but even Thai Muslim teachers don’t always escape being targeted by Muslim separatists and shot down in cold blood.
Watch this Channel 4 News video to understand just how dangerous it is to be a teacher in southern Thailand nowadays, and why so many teachers are now escorted to and from school by the Thai military and why most Thai schools in the south of the country have soldiers guarding them.
All i can say is it must take a hell of a lot of courage to be a teacher in southern Thailand, and you have to admire those who continue to do it, regardless of the dangers, simply because they know if they don’t, thousands of Thai children will end up with no education at all.
