Hardscrabble lottery vendors hit by digital revolution

1 Oct 00:55 Key points summarised by AI

Digital lottery tickets, particularly through the GLO's Paotang app, are rapidly displacing traditional street vendors by offering tickets at the official 80-baht price, significantly undercutting inflated street prices.
Underprivileged, elderly, and disabled traditional vendors face severe income loss as customers switch to convenient and fairly priced digital platforms, resulting in unsold tickets and financial hardship.
The overpricing by street vendors is due to a system where middlemen exploit GLO's quota system, selling tickets to small vendors at inflated rates, making it impossible for them to match digital prices.
Small vendor networks are challenging GLO's digital expansion in court, arguing it's discriminatory and threatens their livelihood, while GLO plans further digital growth and a new 3-digit lottery to combat illegal gambling.

Examining Thailand’s four-part education revolution

Today 14:22 Key points summarised by AI

Thailand's Education Ministry is implementing a four-pronged strategy to address its students' below-average performance in PISA 2025 and tackle significant educational inequality.
The plan prioritizes closing performance gaps by increasing funding for small and low-income schools, overhauling the curriculum to foster critical thinking, and adopting a data-driven management system to reduce teacher workload.
Key initiatives include enhancing school safety, combating cyberbullying, and expanding mental health support through peer-to-peer networks, recognizing the severe impact of distress on academic performance.
An education expert advises verifying if PISA improvements stem from structural changes, advocating for a revived STEM curriculum with practical 'learn by doing' methods, and urging bureaucratic reform to link teacher evaluations to student development.