Bangkok, June 13, 2019 – Time keeps moving, but the Thai saying “Teacher is the 2nd parent of student” never changes. Thai students spend most of their time at school where teachers play a very important part in guiding them to their future so that they will become quality human capital physically, mentally, and intellectually. That is why teachers are crucial to quality and learning of the kids, especially when it comes to nutrition, which is the foundation for their well-being in the future.
Nestlé (Thai) Ltd. realized how important it is to foster the nutritional and healthy behaviors appropriate to the students where teachers are the ones who will drive this and become a role model for them. Healthy Thai Kids Program, which is a part of Nestle for Healthier Kids Initiative, partnered with public organizations and College of Teacher Education, Phranakhon Rajabhat University to set out “Creative Teaching Material for Nutrition Education” campaign to trigger the future teachers to realize and help develop new instructional materials on nutrition education so that Thai kids will concretely have good health and nutrition since their younger ages.
“Creative Teaching Material for Nutrition Education” campaign focuses on fostering the new generation of Thai teachers to be prepared to create teaching materials for nutrition education that will interestingly fit the students to learn in a fun and comprehensible way. Throughout the campaign, 152 teacher students from College of Teacher Education, Phranakhon Rajabhat University went through intensive coaching both on nutrition and development of innovation media using digital technology, and to make progress on that by developing teaching innovation media on nutrition and health so as to propose their work to the judges. The competition welcomes 2 types of teaching materials: invention and digital media so that schools can adapt and make further use of them nationwide in accordance with each school’s context.
Mrs. Kanokthip Prinyarnussorn, Nutrition, Health and Wellness Group Manager at Nestlé (Thai) Ltd. said “Nestlé understands the challenges of teaching professionals that have to deal with changes in the ways of learning and never-ending new trends. So, we continue to make further progress on Healthy Thai Kids Program to support the teachers to have knowledge, skills, and present-day tools to integrate their knowledge on balanced nutrition and encourage proper healthy behaviors that would fit lifestyle of Thai kids. Nestlé believes that by fostering teacher students to realize how crucial their own career is, it will create driving force in the teaching industry. We do hope that this program will help get these teacher students effectively prepared for their actual teaching in schools. Nestlé admires dedication every team has put in, and we would like to congratulate success of the winners. We do believe that these teaching materials will be beneficial and can be inspiration for the teachers nationwide to drive Thai kid’s health.
Of 42 competing teams, all 10 winners were judged by their creativity, easily comprehensible knowledge integration, and how they are properly designed in educational and fun way. The winner of invention category is Variety-Eating Bingo, and the winner of digital media category is 3D board game.
This competition is another inspiration that encourages these teacher students to employ most of their abilities, to think out of the box, and to develop their teaching skills. The accomplishment and award they received is a valuable experience which these participants will pass it to next generation of teacher students.
After this, Healthy Thai Kids Program and its participants will experiment these nutrition teaching materials and make improvement for durability and usage, so that it can be of real use in schools. This is a sustainable enhancement of teaching material for Thai teachers.