Future School Transformation Program: Empowering Schools with Ed-Innovation for Students’ Futures

Octava Foundation and Starfish Education join forces in the Future School Transformation Program program to increase school potential through educational innovation for the benefit of children in Thailand.

Octava Foundation from Singapore is collaborating with Starfish Education from Thailand on the program. Both are nonprofit organizations which have a consistent vision to create positive impact for the public and expand positive benefits. This program has additional emphasis on increasing the potential of schools through educational innovations for the maximum benefit of Thai students.

Both organizations have jointly created the Future School Transformation Program to support education and provide opportunities for underprivileged children in Thailand by supporting capital and professional development to 10 marginalized schools for a period of 3 years from 2024-2026, with total support amounting to over 7.5 million Thai Baht.

The Future School Transformation Program has 3 goals:

1) To support the 3R Innovation curriculum to encourage children to read and write, which is the most important basic skill for every child to continue learning in all areas.

2) To encourage children to develop future skills (4Cs: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication through activities in a Makerspace project and evaluate according to actual conditions with the Starfish Class tool.

3) To support school leaders to have advanced competencies in school management by providing professional development on sustainable management with future skills in various areas such as innovative thinking, solving problems with critical thinking, promoting modern learning, creating sustainable communities, and establishing a network of cooperation to share tools to develop the entire school system through supporting the Future School Leader curriculum.

The project has operational areas in 3 regions and 5 provinces: the central region (Bangkok and Ayutthaya), the western region (Kanchanaburi), and the northern region (Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai), both in urban areas and remote marginalized areas that need special assistance.

There are a total of 10 supported schools:

Nam Ruam Namjai School, Bangkok Province

Wat Don Phutsa School, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province

Ban Kong Mong Tha School, Kanchanaburi Province

Wat Prangkasi School, Kanchanaburi Province

Ban Huai Suea School, Kanchanaburi Province

Uthit School of the Forestry Association of Thailand, Kanchanaburi Province

Ban Huai Kiang School, Chiang Mai Province

Chaopho Luang Uppatham School, 9 Provinces, Chiang Mai

Ban Mae Ka School, Chiang Mai Province

Ban Huai Uen School, Chiang Rai Province

All 10 schools will receive support as follows:

School directors are supported to participate in the Future School Leader course for a period of 5 weeks in a hybrid format to encourage school leaders to have a vision from exchanging knowledge with leading lecturers from Thailand and abroad to use the knowledge gained to develop their schools with the Future School Model;

Schools will receive support in the form of 3R Innovation teaching materials to encourage children to read and write, as well as funding for Makerspace activities to build future skills, complete with tools to assess children's skills and competencies using the Starfish Class assessment tool.

Teachers will receive support in the form of professional development with special privileges to participate in various workshops, coaching and field visits to follow up and help from a team of coaches.

In addition to this support, there is also a research and evaluation piece from a team of researchers who will visit to follow up and work alongside 10 schools to measure the results and progress of the project in various areas, such as the visionary school quality development plan, strategies according to the Future School Leader Model, changes that occur to students, teachers, and school stakeholders, etc.

Both organizations want every child to have the opportunity to access quality education and be a force for further development of the country, and hope for this project to increase school potential through educational innovation and enhance the capabilities of those who actually utilize it, from teachers to school administrators, which is the key for sustainable change. Because of this, the Future School Transformation Program is a project that is worth watching and following.