Skip to content | Change text size
 

Students take study tour to Bangkok

3 August 2005

Communication students from Monash University Malaysia have been on a six-day study tour to Bangkok to gain hands-on experience in journalism.

The children of Klong Toey Slum pose for the students.

Nineteen students, with communication coordinator Dr Yeoh Seng Guan, visited the Thai capital last month.

Dr Yeoh said the study tour was designed to give students exposure to some of the social, cultural and political realities of a neighbouring ASEAN country.

"The tour also gave the students an opportunity to practise their journalistic and writing skills in an unfamiliar environment," he said.

"Hands-on experience provides students with the skills needed to face the challenges of an actual working environment, compared to the conventional classroom style of teaching."

The students met volunteers from the Foundation for Women, a non-government organisation that opposes human and drug-trafficking, travelled to the city of Pommahakan, and visited the Klong Toey slum -- the oldest and largest slum in Bangkok.

One of the students' greatest challenges was the language barrier, but this was overcome by Ms Kanokrat Lertchoosakul from Chulalongkorn University who volunteered her students as tour guides and translators.

The students created a daily blog on their experiences that can be viewed at http://insearchofbangkok.blogsome.com.

Ms Malina Shamsudin, who was chief editor of the blog, said the students worked past midnight each day of the tour to maintain the website.

"We would get back to the hotel late in the evening and hit the nearest internet cafe to update and upload. It was tiring but satisfying," she said.