Once, I visited one of Bangkok’s skills training academies. These schools, run by either district administrations or the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, offer vocational education for Bangkok residents, allowing them to learn new career-relevant skills. I peeked inside a classroom, and saw a whiteboard filled with numbers.
Was it some sort of mathematics class? You could call it that, but it comes with a special bent. They were numbers, yes, but used for a rather different flavor of calculations than we would think of. It was an astrology class, teaching students the art of fortune-telling.
Perhaps it’s too easy to laugh at the notion of skills training schools equipping Bangkokians for the future by teaching them astrology. So much, after all, for Thailand 4.0. But it also gets at the heart of a core issue that Thailand faces at this general election: should we focus on quick fixes to raising living standards, or on sustainable solutions to increasing the competitiveness of our workforce?
Ken Mathis Lohatepanont 
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