Like many other schools around the globe, the daily routines at Wat Salakul School (WSS) were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Attached to a Buddhist temple on the small island of Ko Kret, this school of eighty-six students ranging from nursery to sixth grade had long relied on Distance Learning Television (DLTV) to overcome limited teacher allocation and the island’s relative isolation—Ko Kret, on the Chao Phraya River just north of Bangkok, is only accessible by boat. Long before COVID-19, other Thai schools had gradually shifted to more advanced curricular platforms, leaving DLTV to underserved schools like WSS. When the pandemic struck, however, DLTV returned to the national mainstream as the preferred medium of learning. For WSS students and teachers, DLTV was already familiar. But in the throes of the pandemic, much of Thailand found itself encountering satellite-based DLTV as something newly necessary. To understand DLTV’s uncanny return, and its enduring presence in far-flung corners like Ko Kret, one needs to go back a few decades to probe Thailand’s royal tryst with technology.

In 1995, the Distance Learning Foundation, a royal initiative supported by King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), spearheaded Thailand’s nationwide Satellite Television for Distance Learning program. The project brought the Ministry of Education’s General Education Department together with key partners to oversee the production of educational content. Private entities like Shin Satellite and public ones like the Telephone Organization of Thailand contributed technical and infrastructural support. At the heart of this initiative was Wang Klai Kangwon School, a privately owned institution of the royal family. The school served as the project’s primary broadcasting studio. From this central hub, live educational broadcasts of DLTV were transmitted via satellite to schools across Thailand. Delivered through the benevolence of the king and the supervision of the General Education Department, the Distance Learning Foundation thus aimed to provide underserved areas access to quality education.

DLTV gained significant international attention in the 1990s, becoming a model for many other countries, including Laos, Vietnam, and Japan. Professor Dr. Duong Hong Quy, president of Vietnam’s Technical University, expressed his admiration during a 1999 visit to the school where much of the content was being created. “Since the visit,” he said, “we’ve dreamed of building a distance learning center similar to that in Thailand in our country.”¹ Distance learning was integrated into Thailand’s formal education system, with classrooms broadcasting live and offering innovative two-way communication capabilities—a remarkable feature for the 1990s, when videoconferencing tools like Zoom and Google Meet were not yet available. The project combined satellite technology with tools such as telephone, fax, email, and traditional textbooks. Teachers in rural schools could call or fax questions to the broadcasting classroom, which teachers at the studio could, in turn, address in real time. The Thai media heralded DLTV’s distinctive design as “one of Thailand’s greatest innovations.”²

Despite its acclaim in the 1990s, the 2000s would see satellite-based DLTV become increasingly irrelevant in the eyes of the media, policymakers, and the public. The arrival of the internet and personal devices like tablets and laptops changed the educational landscape. In 2001, Thaksin Shinawatra, a policeman turned telecommunication tycoon, became Thailand’s prime minister. He implemented several technology-related policies during his tenure, such as digitizing government services (e-Government) and launching the ICT Master Plan (2002–2006). He also drew inspiration from the One Laptop Per Child initiative that had been developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to provide free laptops to children. With backing from the Thai state, the internet, laptops, and tablets became the technologies of the day in both education and politics. Satellite television and DLTV meanwhile took a backseat, becoming, for some, obsolete.

Yet, even as DLTV faded from the national limelight, the Distance Learning Foundation quietly carried on with its mission to support schools in rural Thailand. Schools in remote locations continued to adopt and use the system. After the passing of King Bhumibol, Thailand’s new King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) appointed General Dapong Rattanasuwan in 2017 to lead the foundation. Under General Dapong’s watch, the foundation reformed its strategy and implemented several significant changes. It shifted from live broadcasting to prerecorded content, and incorporated new technologies such as internet, digital TV, computers, mobile phones, and flash drives. Throughout these adaptations, the foundation remained committed to its core concept of using television as a primary medium for educational content delivery. Yet the expanded portfolio also showed the foundation’s willingness to leverage new technologies to improve distribution and accessibility. Modernizing the system, rather than replacing it, thus became a means to honor the foundation’s original mission and the late king’s vision. DLTV accordingly endured.

On January 13, 2020, Thailand reported its first COVID-19 case. Public health authorities responded swiftly, implementing strict measures including travel restrictions, quarantine requirements, social distancing, and contact tracing to contain the spread of the virus. The academic calendar was severely disrupted, with term openings delayed to accommodate the changing situation and ensure the safety of students and staff. As remote learning became the “new normal,” educators looked for ways to minimize the disruption. Re-enter DLTV.

The Thai government once again turned to satellite television—and to some degree, away from laptops and tablets—to mitigate the pandemic’s educational impact. Driving this pivot was DLTV’s accessibility. Many students, teachers, and schools did not have the means to acquire laptops or tablets, particularly during the quickly unfolding crisis. In May of 2020, Thailand’s Minister of Education, Nataphol Teepsuwan, introduced the 3 Ons model for education continuity. This approach comprised Onsite learning (where there was no COVID-19 outbreak), Onair learning (primarily DLTV, targeting eighty percent of students from kindergarten through middle school), and Online learning (for high school students with available resources). Nataphol and his team implemented this strategy with the goal that “at least the nation’s education will not have to stumble or come to an abrupt halt again.”⁵

DLTV thus re-emerged as a vital offering of the Thai state. It was not cutting-edge, but there was plenty of educational content available, it was easy to access, and it ran on a steady (if basic) infrastructure. Children across the country—and not just in rural areas like Ko Kret—once again tuned in to an educational system created by the Thai monarchy decades before. DLTV may not have been as innovative as it was during its 1990s inception, but it was there and functional when Thailand needed it—hardly your typical profile of obsolescence. Satellite-based education’s uncanny return during the COVID-19 pandemic instead offers a timely challenge to that assumption so common in development policy that newer is better.

As I restarted my research in the wake of the pandemic, my investigations into satellite television led me to Wat Salakul School. Like other schools in Thailand, WSS closed its gates from March 2020 to October 2021. In the interim, WSS emerged as an exemplary user of DLTV. Benjawan, a teacher I interviewed, shared her insights. “Students with personal devices use them to watch DLTV,” she explained, “but when access is limited or needed to be shared among siblings, they turn to television for DLTV content. In cases where television isn’t an option, DLTV worksheets serve as an alternative learning method.”

Benjawan further detailed WSS’s comprehensive approach to managing the pandemic’s educational disruption. The crisis prompted novel configurations of old and new technology. To complement the use of DLTV, the school made use of Line, the dominant messaging app in Thailand, as a crucial communication tool. Teachers used Line to contact parents, preparing them for each day’s learning activities and ensuring they were equipped to support their children’s education at home. This proactive communication strategy helped maintain a strong connection between the school and families during remote learning. Additionally, the school implemented a system for delivering DLTV worksheets to students. These physical materials provided an essential supplement to the televised content, offering students tangible resources for learning and practice. The old-school distribution of worksheets proved especially beneficial for those with limited access to digital devices or internet connectivity.

In unexpected ways then, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted not only the enduring value of Thailand’s satellite television services, but also the importance of everyday technologies such as worksheets and messaging apps. In a crisis, the cutting-edge may not be always—or only—what is needed. At WSS, the dependability and flexibility of satellite infrastructure to accommodate other media has made it a crucial educational resource—never more so than during the onset of COVID-19, when everything else seemed so uncertain. In this isolated temple school on the island of Ko Kret, DLTV was never obsolete. In fact, the reliance of Thailand’s underserved communities on this undervalued technology before the pandemic helped ensure that DLTV was there for Thailand’s more privileged corners during the crisis. The national resurgence of this “outdated” technology exposes the shortcomings of elite-driven, urban-centric narratives of obsolescence. It shows how a crisis can shift our perceptions and reveal the continued relevance of technologies elsewhere considered past their prime. In these ways, DLTV sheds important light on the situated nature of technological obsolescence.

As this case study helps us to see, older and more established technologies can be just as crucial as newer ones in ensuring widespread access to learning, especially during challenging times. Be it in Bangkok or Ko Kret, Thailand’s use of satellite television during the pandemic underscores the value of maintaining and adapting existing technologies—not replacing them wholesale. In times of crisis, the most valuable solutions may be those that are most accessible and familiar. More broadly, Thailand’s experience of DLTV pushes us to think critically about how one defines and responds to the problem of obsolescence, particularly in the context of national infrastructure and crisis preparedness. As we move forward in our rapidly changing world, we must ask ourselves: How can we balance the pursuit of new technologies with the preservation of proven solutions to ensure resilience in the face of unforeseen challenges? ■

1. Government Saving Bank, The King and His People: 45 Years of the Royal Palace Dusit Radio Station (Royal Palace Dusit Radio Station, 1999), 1014. ↩︎
2. Patawee, “Thaicom—Thailand’s First Satellite,” Preaw, November 25, 1993, 126. ↩︎
3. Saowarod Ronnakied, “To Dedicate Merit to the Deceased Queen Grandmother,” Daily Matichon, sec. Sooksan, August 4, 1995. ↩︎
4. Borpit Kaodeera, “‘Thaicom’: Thailand’s First Satellite,” Thairath, sec. Loklaksi, December 9, 1993. ↩︎
5. “‘DLTV’ Rescue the National Education Crisis,” Thairath Online, May 19, 2020, www.thairath.co.th/news/local/1847303. ↩︎
6. Thanyaporn Buathong, “Online Learning: Distance Education in the Pandemic Era and Educational Inequalities,” BBC News Thailand, May 23, 2020, www.bbc.com/thai/thailand-52766138. ↩︎