Thailand welcomes the US Treasury's new measures targeting Southeast Asian scam networks, aligning with its priority to combat transnational crime.
The US sanctioned 19 individuals and entities in Myanmar and Cambodia, freezing assets and banning business, due to their involvement in defrauding victims and using forced labor.
Online scams are recognized as a critical security concern, intricately linked to serious transnational crimes such as forced labor, human trafficking, and money laundering.
The US also issued an advisory on financially motivated sextortion, highlighting a surge in schemes targeting teenagers with AI-generated deepfakes, and provided detection guidelines for financial institutions.
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.