Between Thursday and Sunday, there were 2,300 road accidents as people travelled around the country on holiday and returned home to visit their families in the provinces.

Officials will tighten their monitoring of traffic conditions today, the last day of the designated holiday season, to prevent further casualties as people return to their normal places of residence, according to national police chief General Chakthip Chaijinda.

With one day to go, Chakthip said he expected the number of accidents and casualties to be down on last year.

He urged commuters to cooperate with officials and stick to traffic regulations for their own safety. “Drunk and fast driving over the speed limit is strictly prohibited,” he said.

“Wearing helmets and seat belts are compulsory for all drivers and passengers,” he said, adding that using cell phones while driving was also against the law.

In one road smash in northern Chiang Mai province yesterday, a van overturned injuring at least 13 passengers as it was taking them to Doi Ang Kang mountain for the New Year, a rescue official said.

In the Northeast Udon Thani province, Governor Wattana Wutthichart attended a provincial hospital to visit people injured in road accidents during the holiday season and claimed that his road safety campaign this year had helped reduced number of casualties.

It urged people to stop friends and family from driving if drunk. Officials at checkpoints have been ordered to stop all vehicles and be alert for drivers who appeared drunk, he said.

Min Buri Provincial Court yesterday granted bail for Seksan on a guarantee of Bt150,000. But he was then taken to Phrom Kiri Police Station in Nakhon Si Thammarat to face further charges. Police said he possessed an unregistered gun and there were traces of narcotics in his urine.

Earlier Friday, Seksan broadcast himself on Facebook Live shooting a gun into the sky inside a temple compound in Nakhon Si Thammarat.

Nakhon Si Thammarat Court issued an arrest warrant the next day.

He had missed two concerts – in Nong Khai and Pattaya – as police were hunting him, and he was later captured at his home in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve.

Khannayao Police superintendent Pol Colonel Sing Singhadet said officers had arrested Seksan at his home in Bangkok’s Bang Khen district under an arrest warrant on charges of possessing an illegal gun and ammunition, carrying a gun in public without a justifiable reason and shooting in public without justifiable reason.

However, after an armed confrontation between police and Seksan at his home, police issued a further charge of resisting a police operation.

Sing said a search of Seksan’s house has uncovered an unregistered gun, which Seksan claimed belonged to his friend. An initial urine examination also discovered traces of methamphetamines, with further results expected in two days.

Seksan claimed that his urine turned purple after the narcotics test because he had taken sleeping pills. He also apologised for his reckless behaviour by shooting in public and confronting police with a gun. He admitted that this set a bad example, which he had not intended to do.

His ex-wife, Wiphakorn Sukphimai, said she could not confirm that Seksan was under the effect of drugs, because she did not see him using them. She said she did not know about the gun that her ex-husband claimed belonged to a friend, but she knew that he had two registered guns.

Two planned concert appearances were affected by Sekan’s absence. The owner of Khong Eye Villa Resort in Nongkhai Phuchong Chanantho, who hired Seksan for a concert at his resort on Saturday, revealed that he planned to sue the star because he had violated his contract to perform.

Phuchong said the resort had signed the contract with Seksan’s band in March and had already paid him. His absence caused many fans to cancel their tickets and the resort had to refund the full purchase price.

To celebrate the arrival of the New Year, many people set off fireworks while others fired guns into the sky despite warnings about the possible danger.

Police and other campaigners have warned against shooting firearms into the sky during festive events given the risk of fatalities, injuries and property damage.

After the New Year’s countdown yesterday, reports of falling bullets came in from across the country.

In Songkhla, 44-year-old businessman Rawich Kamolsitthisathit filed a complaint at Hat Yai Police Station after finding that a bullet had penetrated through his roof and embedded in the ceiling of the second floor of his house near his bedroom and bathroom.

He said he suspected the bullets might have been fired by people celebrating as his family had had a similar experience last year.

It was lucky that no one in his family had been harmed by falling bullets in either incident, Rawich said.

He added that he did not know whether it would occur again next year and asked the public to stop firing guns into the sky for any reason.

In Samut Prakan, 29-year-old engineer Adul Wattanacharoen actually moved his New Year’s party from his front yard to inside his house due to worry about hazards shortly before a bullet hit his Toyota Fortuner’s windshield.

Adul said that he knew about the hazards caused by falling bullets because such incidents had taken place in his neighbourhood many times before. About five minutes after he and his family and friends moved inside his house to continue to celebrate, a bullet hit his truck windshield’s left corner, causing a spiderweb crack.

He said he could not imagine what would have happened if the bullet had hit someone, Adul said.

Another incident was reported in Pathum Thani, as Sarawuth Mungcharoen, 38, said his niece had told him about hearing a noise in his backyard while he was celebrating with his family. His family, however, did not realise a bullet had fallen onto their roof until bedtime when they noticed a crack in the ceiling and dust on the floor.

Sarawuth said fortunately no one had been injured or killed but he hoped that such a hazard would not happen again. He also filed a complaint with police in Klong Luang district in Pathum Thani.

Celebratory shooting is illegal and perpetrators face possible arrest. In a related case, controversial rock star Seksan Sukphimai, more commonly known as “Sek Loso” was detained on charges of shooting a pistol in public.

Large numbers enjoyed the festive atmosphere on the opening day of the year as tourist destinations became crowded with visitors, who got up early to witness the first light of 2018, while many started the year by seeking a blessing and making merit at temples.

It was reported from Ubon Ratchathani that more than 10,000 people gathered at Pha Taem National Park in Khong Chiam district since the afternoon of New Year’s Eve to witness the first sunlight of 2018 at the easternmost point of Thailand, making them the first in the country to see the opening sunrise of the new year.

Meanwhile, in other national parks across the country – such as Lam Nam Nan National Park in Nan and Khao Yai National Park in Prachin Buri – many tourists camped overnight to catch the breaking of the year’s first dawn.

More than 8,000 tourists reportedly stayed overnight for a countdown party and to enjoy the cool weather in Khao Yai National Park, resulting in every camping area being fully occupied.

After celebrations on the night of New Year’s Eve, many people also rose early to make merit at hometown temples, with morning alms-giving to the monks arranged by local authorities in every province.

Major temples such as Wat Phra Pathommachedi Ratcha Wora Maha Wihan in Nakhon Pathom were crowded with people who arrived early in the morning to make merit and ask for a New Year’s blessing.

In one of the most remote Karen villages, in Phetchaburi’s Nong Ya Plong district, the local authorities also arranged a morning alms-giving ceremony to offer the opportunity for more than 500 Karen and other hill-tribe people to make merit.

Viewers in the affected areas will need to use a cable box and satellite dish to access programmes.

The Thai PBS station has stopped transmitting its analogue signal in Kanchanaburi, Khon Kaen, Phetchabun, Phuket, Yala, Lampang, Sing Buri, Sukhothai and Surat Thani.

Channel 7 stopped broadcasting on the old system in 17 provinces; Mae Hong Son, Lampang, Phrae, Nan, Buriram, Surin, Trat, Nakhon Sawan, Uthai Thani, Chainat, Kanchanaburi, Ranong, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Satul, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwas.

Channel 5 stopped in three provinces: Ubon Ratchathani, Chaiyaphum, and Loei.

Meanwhile, the government-run NBT channel has postponed cutting off its service to July 17.

Prayut said he was looking into the relevant laws to find ways to speed up the project, which involves investment in creating “smart cities” in Rayong, Chon Buri and Chachoengsao.

He also asked private companies to work with the government in the plan to boost regional economies along the eastern seaboard.

“Right now, investment has started to pour into the EEC, so I want the Smart City project to become a reality as soon as possible,” Prayut said. “But the government cannot work on this task alone, we need cooperation from the big private companies and to work together,” Prayut said.

“The people also need to understand that this project will not specifically benefit just some people. Everyone will get advantages from this project as a whole, and big businesses will profit as well because no one wants to invest in unprofitable projects.”

Prayut also asked people to support the tourism industry. He said that more than 35 million tourists visited Thailand in 2017 because of the country’s stability.

“Under my administration, the country is peaceful and stable, attracting larger numbers of tourists every year,” he said.

“All Thai people need to preserve peace in our society and take care of our guests, as they provide us huge income.”

During the past two months, about 4 million people had visited the Royal Crematorium ceremonial grounds in remembrance of much-revered HM the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (King Rama IX).

The late monarch passed away on October 13, 2016 with the mourning period lasting more than one year and the Royal Cremation Ceremony held over five days in October

Exhibitions on the ceremony and his life were then held at the Crematorium grounds and |people were allowed to visit between November 2 and yesterday.

“I am much impressed. The Royal Crematorium is grand and marks a proper farewell to the great King,” a visitor said yesterday.

He added that the exhibition had also featured knowledge that proved practical in his daily life. “I plan to apply it,” he said.

A woman from Pathum Thani province said she went to the exhibition with her family. “I am very impressed.

And from now on, I will embrace the late King’s Sufficiency Economy philosophy,” she said.

As the exhibition has already concluded, the Culture Ministry is set to start deconstucting the grand Royal Crematorium later this month.

By tradition, the Royal Crematorium will not be kept and the deconstruction is expected to conclude before the end of March.

Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat recently said wood and metal from the Royal Crematorium would be used to build a new museum in Pathum Thani province.

“Spanning over four rai [0.64 hectares] of land, the new museum will cost about Bt80 million. The exhibition space is around 10,000 square metres, including the Anodard Pond at the Royal Crematorium,” said Anan Choochote, director-general of the Fine Arts Department.

Parts of the Royal Crematorium will also be displayed in the new museum.

The new museum, which is expected to open in 2020, will be located in a 200-rai compound tha will also house the Supreme Artist Museum and the King Rama IX Archive.

In Bangkok, huge crowds gathered for big concerts, light-and-sound shows and stunning fireworks at CentralWorld. Many other revellers counted down to 2018 in a celebratory atmosphere at eateries, on Khao San Road and at top venues featuring special events.

In the provinces, holidaymakers camped out at various destinations to celebrate the birth of a new year with their families.

In Phuket province, for example, tourists crowded popular beaches |as they waited for the arrival of 2018.

While many sought out colourful events to greet the new year, so many others opted for a peaceful tone.

In Kalasin province, Sahatsakhan district chief Sub-Lieutenant Thirapol Choknamchai said yesterday that although lively events attracted crowds, several thousand people had opted instead to join prayer rituals.

He said famous local temples, particularly those on top of mountains, had prepared areas for prayers to mark the occasion. Among those temples were the Sakkawan Forest Temple, the Phu Kum Khao Temple and the Buddhanimit Temple.

Many Buddhists consider it auspicious to start the new year with prayers.

“We have prepared shuttle services for prayers,” Thirapol said. “Shuttles run from the foot of the mountain to the temples.”

The shuttle services ran from 6pm yesterday to 5am today.

In Songkhla, at least four temples in the municipal zone hosted overnight rituals to allow people to pray from New Year’s Eve to the early hours of today.

In Chiang Mai, Doi Inthanon National Park prepared prayer areas for people who wished to end 2017 and start 2018 with a marathon of prayers.

While people expect the New Year holiday period to be a time of celebration, relevant authorities in the country have designated last Thursday to next Wednesday as the “seven dangerous days”.

The designation aims to remind motorists to drive safely and promote road safety with millions of people on the road for the holiday period.

Transport Co, which provides interprovincial bus services, reported that it had serviced 158,566 passengers on Saturday alone.

“Up to 2,210 bus trips were added for the day to accommodate the demand,” the bus operator announced.

Saturday saw 649 road accidents, causing 73 deaths and injuring 688 people.

Drunk driving was the most common cause, accounting for 47.92 per cent of all accidents. Speeding came next, accounting for 21.88 per cent.

Of all accidents, 78.77 per cent involved motorcycles and 8.07 per cent involved pickups.

From Thursday to Saturday, a total of 1,702 road accidents killed 167 people and injured 1,793 |people.

Chiang Mai province experienced the highest number of road accidents, while Si Sa Ket province saw the highest number of road deaths with nine killed. Buri Ram province had the highest number of people injured, 69, in road accidents.

Road casualties were reduced overall in the first three of the seven days associated with the New Year holiday period when compared with the same period a year earlier. A year ago, the first three days of the period saw 199 people killed and 2,099 injured in road accidents.

THAILAND’S education system will face additional challenges in 2018, including a requirement that graduates have a “growth” mindset and well-rounded skills. Teachers are also having to adjust themselves to new roles as their monopoly as the key source of knowledge lessens.

Education expert Athapol Anunthavorasakul said Thailand shared the belief with the rest of the world that the integration of technology into everyday life was central to the lifestyles of young people.

Because of this, “the old way of having teachers just passing on knowledge no longer works”, said the director of the Research & Development Centre on Education for Sustainable Development at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education.

“Youths now require different skills, such as data verification, data selection for sharing, data production discretion and thinking skills. They will face more risks [in the current era] and must know how to make plans,” said Athapol in an exclusive interview with The Nation.

With rapid-fire changes affecting the economy, people can no longer rely on being a good employee for a business operator, but instead the “must have entrepreneurial skills too”, he said. And that requires changes to education to prepare the student.

With different ways of thinking and new skill sets required, teaching methods and education management must also change, he said.

The new “self-directed learning” approach challenges students in Thailand, and throughout the world, to take responsibility and be accountable for learning by doing their own research and analysing data while also managing their own learning schedules, he said.

Among challenges for teachers and educators will be developing “executive” functioning in students to allow them to be their own masters by planning, organising, memorising, time managing and making sure tasks get done, he said. The importance of autonomous learning would become prominent in coming years, he said.

Teachers meanwhile would take on primary roles as the support the individual students’ learning. Already, technological advancement has ended the centuries-old teacher monopoly on knowledge, and even younger children are fast learning how to digitally access information from sources, Athapol said.

A Thai Education 4.0 agenda is already being implemented, though it has not gone smoothly. It would require students to produce innovations, think like entrepreneurs and have associated skills, discover knowledge on their own, work well with others and formulate plans. To create such qualities, a different kind of learning environment is required, one where teachers serve as supporters to the students’ learning. That in turn requires training teachers for their new role in addition to developing their own techno-savvy skill sets.

The trend poses a challenge to the Education Ministry and the government as policy makers. Policy makers, along with those then executing the policies, must come to the same understanding to have a successful shift to new approaches in the classroom. In the past, teachers were still on the receiving end of instruction while schools had very limited independence in arranging study programmes that suited children’s potential, according to Athapol.

Recently introduced changes faced confusion, including the establishment of a provincial education committee. That raised the question about who has the authority and whether schools would in practice end up having to take yet more orders “from two masters” and so become even less independent. Athapol said the past two years saw the introduction of new policies contradicting and obstructing implementation of the new education agenda, and that has put a freeze on a more creative approach in the classroom.

Athapol welcomed the more positive changes, such as the government’s promotion of the professional learning community (PLC), which is a method to foster collaborative learning among teachers who form working groups for practice-based professional learning. “It’s good for schools to use PLC, as teachers can learn together about the job and what problems they encountered in classes,” he said.

As students have grown up along with Internet communication technologies (ICT), teachers must ensure that the ICT skills are put to useful and constructive application, including respectful interactions that develop respect for themselves and each other when interacting online, Athapol urged.

Other education trends include a focus on literacy and competency. A competency-based curriculum is emerging, along with teacher management based on competency and skills.

As learning can now take place anywhere and not just in schools, Thailand can learn from the success stories in other countries of providing supplementary lessons at home. Athapol said the Education Ministry must look beyond the classroom and have teachers provide knowledge as well as inspire students to learn.

“We often talk about passion, positive thinking and the growth mindset” – in which people have a voracious appetite for learning and constantly seek out additional input that increases their knowledge and constructive actions. “All these things must be instilled for students via the classroom, the school and outside, as well as through more useful school activities that are more focused and have closer ties to real life. For example, children in rural communities can have school activities focusing on agriculture so they can aid their parents,” he said.

Athapol said the new generation must have more skills, including ICT, and know about their own competencies and aptitude as well as their weakness. They need all of that because they will face fast and fierce competition in the working world.

“The kind of work that would be ‘dead’ is probably newspapers which had problems in recent years and bookstores, which would be affected due to the drop in printed media. Many have now shifted to produce online content, but that also faces uncertainty in the next five years,” he said.

Students needed to accumulate skills and competencies, embrace and adapt to changes, and be ready to step beyond a comfort zone, he said, and education and teachers must help them. “Teachers must adjust. If they do not yet realise this, the Education Ministry and state mechanisms must help them change.”

People visited the exhibition in remembrance of the much-revered HM the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The late monarch passed away on October 13, 2016. A one-year mourning period followed, with the Royal Cremation Ceremony held over five days in October.

Exhibits detailing the ceremony and the late King’s life were then put on display at the Crematorium grounds in Sanam Luang.

People were allowed to visit between November 2 and December 31.

The Crematorium will be deconstructed beginning in mid-January 2018. Parts will be displayed in a new museum being built for a 2020 opening in Pathum Thani province, Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat said on December 22.