The government is finally waking up to how important play time is for the country's future. At present, Thailand is a nightmare when it comes to quality playgrounds and creative environments for young people.
Bangkok has few parks or sports facilities. Its museums are dead and libraries might as well have 'no children allowed' signs nailed to the door. The result is that young minds are imprisoned in concrete jungles or glitzy shopping centres, or brainwashed in front of trash TV or mindless computer games. Little wonder that complaints are growing about youngsters going wild over sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and that all that matters to them is the size of their mobile phone and decibel level of their motorcycle exhausts.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said he wants to turn Bangkok into a 'super city' with a better quality of life, cleaner streets and fewer traffic jams. Big infrastructure plans are in the works. But it is in his government's ideas for 'active learning environments' where the innovative premier appears to have hit on one of the secrets of turning Thailand from a mere high-growth 'sweatshop' into a hub of creativity and innovation.
Mr Thaksin's plans are only the beginning, and it is unclear whether much more will be done. But there is hope that the schemes will spark life and creativity into Thailand's youth.
The secret to turning Thai children into bright, creative go-getters is to throw them into a creative and stimulating environment where they can learn and have fun at the same time. So when the talk is of developing learning centres, children's parks, educational butterfly farms, sports facilities and a massive museum, ears prick up.
That is what is on the cards. Over the last couple of months, both the national government and the Bangkok authorities have announced plans for three adjacent parks in the north to be merged and turned into the city's biggest 'learning centre'. This 400-hectare park would include a botanical garden, aquarium, butterfly park, discovery museum, railway museum and a miniature 'traffic city', where children can learn basic traffic rules. There are also plans for a 10 billion baht (HK$2 billion) 'knowledge development centre' and a science and knowledge museum.