Empowering Local Wisdom Teachers through Cooperation Network Management Education for Career Building of Wongdeaun Akomsurathan Center Vocational Training Center of Thai People under the Royal Initiative Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in Uthai Thani

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the context, implement strategies, and develop a framework for empowering local wisdom educators through a collaborative network for educational management and career development at the Wongdeaun Akomsurathan Center. The research methodology was divided in to 3 phases. The first phase involved studying the context of local wisdom teachers through documentary analysis, followed by in-depth interview, semi-structured interviews with 30 informants, including local wisdom teachers, vocational training participants and community members. Data analysis thought content analysis. The second phase focus on empowering local wisdom teachers and included 3 steps: a planning stage, where a focus group of 30 participants from various sectors collaborated to design an empowerment strategies; an action and observation stage, where stakeholders worked together to design a curriculum, organize learning activities and conduct evaluations. Two assessment tools measuring knowledge and performance were developed. These tools has an index of content validity 0.05 or higher, yielding a reliability coefficient of 0.8. Data. Analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The third phase involved synthesizing a framework for empowering local wisdom teachers, which was validated through expert interviews. The research findings revealed that local wisdom possessed deep expertise in the fields of culinary art and craftsmanship. These Knowledge were transferred through lectures and demonstrations. Several challenges were identified in teaching process, including: 1) a lack of successors, 2) inconsistent availability of local wisdom teachers 3) insufficient teaching materials, 4) absence of knowledge assessment and 5) a low number of students. The network has collaborated to drive the empowerment of local wisdom teachers and designed activities plan, Taeng Yuak (banana stalk carving arts). The results indicated that learners’ post-training knowledge has significantly improved to compare to their pre-training levels. Furthermore their performance in banana stalk carving was rated as satisfactory. Based on this findings, a systematic framework for empowering local wisdom teachers was developed. The framework included four key component, change agents, partner network, multiple influencing factors, and operational process.