Abstract:
In recent years, more teachers have been charged with disciplinary offences.
The purpose of this research is to study situations and trends of discipline infringement
among Bangkok Metropolitan teachers, problems and obstacles in the disciplinary
process, and prevention and solutions of misbehaviour.
Data were classified into 3 groups (a) secondary data from 108 reporting
documents on the disciplinary process between 1998-2002 (b) in-depth interviews with
6 expert disciplinary officers and (c) questionnaires to 97 Bangkok school
administrators.
The findings show that (a) male teachers have a higher rate of disciplinary
offences than female teachers (b) the average age of offending teachers is 40-49 (c) the
average education is Bachelor Degree (d) defendants are mostly temporary contract
employees (e) the average salary is lower (f) the average seniority is less than 10 years
(g) disciplinary cases are committed in all areas of Bangkok (h) most cases reveal that
the offending teachers have committed the breach of discipline for the first time.
Most reports on disciplinary offences are made by superiors. Most offences are
for absenteeism under Section 92. The most common penalty is a salary deduction.
Economic incentives are major cause of discipline offences and the trend is to an
increasing number of offences.
Problems in the disciplinary process are (a) no primary investigation (b) the
process of investigation; questioning and consideration for the truth is slow and
information is insufficient (c) disciplinary officers lack autonomy in pursuing cases (d)
directions of punishment are unclear. Problems from internal and external offices are (a)
lack of co-operation between the school district and the disciplinary officer (b) changes
brought about by the new Act (c) lack of time for investigation (d) and lack of
information exchange.
The co-ordination among school administrators, teachers and the related
organizations will speed up the disciplinary process.