New Generation Teachers Resilience: Home Grown Teacher Scholarship Program

Abstract

This qualitative research investigated the resilience process among the new generation of teachers in the Home-Grown Teacher Scholarship Program ("Kru Rak Thin" project) to understand their motivation to complete the bachelor's degree.  The primary informants included the 12 new generation teachers, i.e., the current scholarship students under Batch 1 in the "Kru Rak Thin" project, while the secondary informants were the 10 individuals involved with the social context of the new generation teachers, i.e., lecturers and personnel in the community. According to the research results, most scholarship students' family members worked as agricultural laborers with uncertain incomes. Their living conditions were poor regarding nutrition, secure housing, and a lack of caregivers. Although some students were determined to complete their bachelor's degree, poverty unfortunately limited their dreams. The hardships encountered by these students included the family poverty affecting their further education at a university level and the difficulties in the academic context. The resilience of students' identity was derived from their individual and personal ability to relate the experiences learned from their own families, culture, and beliefs to the social world in which they are currently living. Furthermore, it could be noted that the students would be able to access the education, activities enhancing the curriculum's potential, mutual goals among the lecturers and students, participation of personnel in the community in the activities, and involvement of families in modifying the students' behaviors only when there was the social context contribution from various sectors supporting the student's resilience process e.g. flexible regulations of the Equitable Education Fund (EEF), and so on.