1. Goal : to develop education in a manner which is conducive to economic development
of the nation and corresponds to the Eighth National Economic and Social Development Plan
(NESDP). At the same time it is to be adjusted in harmony with globalization to attain
educational excellence by the year 2007 2. Rationale : Education is instrumental in :- 1)
alleviating poverty as well as narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor; 2) human
development in accordance with the Eighth National Economic and Social Development Plan
which indicates a shortage in qualified workforce; 3) creating peace for mankind; 4)
creating national security. 3. The past seven NESDP’s have made such unprecedented
economic progress that Thailand’s rates of economic growth remain amongst the highest in
the world. This economic prosperity has unfortunately widened the gap between the rich and
the poor resulting in disparities in quality of life. Only 30% of the population earns
more than 50,000 baht per capita per year while 70% or approximately 40 millions earns
less than 50,000 baht. Thus, these 40 millinon people are forced to have a lower quality
of life than that of the unskilled workers who earn the minimum wage totalling over 50,000
per year. Consequently, the offspring of these 40 million poor Thai citizens have
unavoidably been deprived of good quality compulsory education. The matter is worsened
when considering their lack of opportunity to undertake a 12 year- continuing education,
due to the financial difficulties of their parents. 4. One national policy must stipulate
that the State shall render education to its citizens from the cradle to the grave, with
the concept of providing every youth with a good quality 12 year- continuing education,
from pre-kinger-garten, through kindergarten, primary, lower secondary, upper secondary,
vocational or equivalent to higher educational level. Within this framework, compulsory
education should therefore, be regarded as fundamental for everyone, in enabling them to
earn their living and attain a desirable quality of life in society. For such reasons, the
State has a policy to expand compulsory education from 6 years to 9 years and eventually
12 years. 5. It is the mandate of the Ministry of Education to provide 12 year compulsory
education for the 12 million youngsters studying within the formal system, and another 3
millions in the non-formal system. 6. The Ministry of Education is a large organization
which employs more than 600,000 teachers and civil servants who serve within 17 main
departments and those with the equivalent status. This workforce undertake the task of
administering education from perprimary to higher educational educational level. There are
more than 40,000 schools and educational institutions covering all areas throughout the
country. 7. For the past decade, the Ministry of Education has had to encounter a great
number of accumulated problems which, while have not been rectified, pose as obstacle for
any effort to provide 6 years of good quality education. Moreover, they also make the task
of expanding compulsory education from 6 years to 9 year and eventually 12 years, with the
aim of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor and enabling every to lead to good
life in society, extremely difficult to fulfill. The problems which have accumulated
during the past decade can be mainly identified as follows:- 1) Insufficient budget. As
over 82% of the budget is spent on personnel salary and administrative costs, only 18% is
left for educational development which does not correspond with the 40% the country has
earmarked for the development budget as a whole; 2) No administrative unity; 3) Vaque
educational policies and plans which are not in line with economic development and the
fact that the world has now become a global village; 4) Teacher shortage. The fact that no
clear solutions have been made aggravates this problem in the rural areas; 5) Inefficient
budgeting spending as well as lowquality material and equipment procurement. Loose terms
of specifications and a priority on lower prices at the expense of quality, result in the
malfunction of materials and equipment for school usage; 6) Inappropriate curriculum and
learning/teaching processes which do not correspond to the needs of society in relation to
its present stage of national development. Thus, school graduates are unable to apply
their acquired knowledge and skills in the field of work; 7) Inadequate remuneration and
welfare benefits which make teachers struggle in the present day economic situation; 8)
Educational expenses per head for students at various grades in government schools are not
consistent with the amount of tuition fees and educational materials per head as
stipulated by the Ministry of Finance. The existing rates of tuition fees were proposed by
the Ministry of Education in 1977 and have been in operation ever since without any
adjustment to the fluctuations of monetary value of baht currency. Financial support from
the Ministry of Education to government schools per student is therefore insufficient for
proper educational management; 9) Lack of utilization plans for maximun benefits. Emphasis
on building new educational institutions while enrolment expansion in existing
institutions is also a practical possibility. 10) Personnel administration system has
often been under the influence of political power, thereby any merit consideration and
promotion task is not based on meritocracy; 11) Lack of consistent teachers training and
development; 12) Too many overlapping functions amongst various units within the
organization, which hinder administrative co-operation. Too many positions are being
created within each department of the Ministry of Education; 13) Active community
participation in educational development has not been encouraged. School administrators
tend to manage their institution according to their own policies; 14) Local wisdom has not
been explored to enhance teaching/learning processes due to a lack of financial support;
15) Chronic problems concerning drug usage within educational institutions; 16) Lack of
clear policy and plans to put the children of those whose income is below 50,000 baht per
year into vocational institutions. These youngsters will be trained to become skilled
workers, thereby alleviating the problem of personnel shortages in certain enterprises.
The children from poor families have therefore, an opportunity to earn higher incomes; 17)
No genuine attempts to monitor and solve the problems of the schools have been made by
administrators from the Ministry of Education, be it at the district, provincial or
ministerial level. They tend to solve various problems from written documents without
insightful practical data, while their inaccurate knowledge of rules and regulations often
ironically deters any problem-solving endeavour; 18) Most of the schools have not been
well maintained due to a lack of budget. Renovation is thus, urgently needed; 19)
Shortages in teaching/learning materials and equipment as well as well as classrooms and
laboratories; 20) No curricula which instills in learners desirable practices in relation
to morality, ethics, discipline, environment protection and democracy. When the current
government took office on the twenty sixth of July, 1995, its policies concerning
education, religion and culture were proclaimed. Their fundamental policy is to improve
the quality of education in line with economic development, while considering the
expansion of compulsory education from 6 years to 9 years and eventually 12 years
respectively, an urgent task. Under such a policy, it is of great importance to promote
such aspects of Thai heritage as religion, ethics, morality and cultural preservation. 8.
In December 1995, after relevant data on the existing problems had been studied and the
goals in educational, religious and cultural administration were set, the Ministry of
Education has developed the following 4 approaches in order to attain its education reform
policy:- 1) School Reform 2) Teachers Reform 3) Curriculum Reform 4) Administration Reform
9. Education, by its nature, involves a great number of people. Hence, it is everyone’s
duty and responsibility to take part in educational development, especially when
considering the fact that schools and educational institutions of all kinds are the
closest organization to students, parents and the public alike. In January 1996, an
approach for school reform was laid down, stipulating that all schools under the School
Reform Project aim to become an ideal school, like the one prescribed by the Ministry of
Education’s 10 Commandments. This approach encourages the school administrators to
create a desirable environment, with well equipped materials and adequately functional
classrooms which is conducive to teaching/learning activities. Moreover, school curricula
must be tailored to suit local needs while the community should be encouraged to
participate in school adminstration. The problem of staff shortages must also be solved
and finally, the school should prove to be of high quality and a standard which is highly
acceptable to the whole community. 10. For over a year, various approaches and solutions
have been put into practice in order to alleviate the aforementioned accumulated problems,
some of which have turned out to be successful as targeted: 1) For the 1997 financial
year, the educational budget was increased from 133 billion baht to 163 billion baht which
is equivalent to a 22.5% increase from that in the 1996 financial year. The educational
investment budget in particular, was raised from 18% in 1996 to 26.2% in 1997 or from 23
billion baht to 43 billion baht. During the 1997 financial year, the bulk of this budget
will be spent according to the education reform policy, with the aim of upgrading school,
teaching/learning materials and equipment as well as the school staff; 2) In the 1996
academic year, the curriculum has been adjusted so that English will be taught in the
first grade with an emphasis on listening, speaking, reading and writing skills; 3) 5,669
teachers have been appointed to replace those teachers who retired during the period
1994-1995. Based on a misconception that the cabinet’s streamlined resolution is to
dissolve the positions of retired teachers without any exception, the 5,669 positions were
inappropriately dissolved. Inctual fact, it is possible to urge the cabinet to review this
issue; 4) The cabinet approved the proposed amendment of the Teacher Civil Service
Commission’s rule number 13 which permits Teacher 2 level 6 to advance to level 7
without having to submit any academic work for consideration. This amendment will come
into effect on the second of October, 1996; 5) A policy to raise the standard of education
in a complete cycle has been drawn up, starting from preprimary level through to primary,
secondary or equivalent, to higher education, after which a new cycle will resume.
Initially, the quality of primary education is to be upgraded while attempts are made to
put all of the young children into school, in preparation for their first grade in the
year 1997. This is the reason why the budget for educational development of the Office of
the National Primary Education Commission (ONPEC) has been raised from 6.5 billion to 17
billion baht in 1997, which is the largest amount ever received by this organization; 6)
While education reform has brought about unity within the Ministry of Education, thousands
of individuals involved in the task of education reform over one year ago also created a
comceptual diversity in concrete educational development; 7) Clear policies and practical
approaches have been indentified to provide the children of 40 million poor people with 12
years of education in agricultural colleges free of charge. Under the Self-Sufficiency
Agricultural Education Project, more than 10,000 ninth grade graduates from opportunity
expansion schools under the jurisdiction of ONPEC, have been selected to undertake
agricultural courses as boarding students. While studying in such agricultural colleges,
the acquired theoretical nowledge and practical skills will enable the learners to support
themselves as the surplus of agricultural produce and products will be sold in the market.
Moreover, other fields such as electrical and mechanical studies, computing, accounting
and marketing are also available. Every graduate from these courses must possess a driving
license for tractors/backhoes and must be able to cook and use agricultural machinery at
the same time. Learners are also required to undertake a territorial defense course to
instill in them discipline and loyalty for king, country and religion. A graduate will
also be conferred the rank of corporal. At present, there is a plan to enrol another
10,000 students for the second term in November 1996 and expand this to 100,000 students
in the year 1997. This project has already been approved by the cabinet with appropriate
budgetary allocations being set aside for 1996 and 1997. For the five-year-project, a
budget allocation of over 7 billion baht has also been approved in principal. The Ministry
of Education is confident that this project corresponds to the needs of society in
relation to human development, whereby staff shortages in various occupations have been
identified by the Eighth NESDP. Once a vocational certificate in agriculture is obtained,
these agricultural graduates are ready to enter into the world of full time employment; 8)
Clear policies concerning a budget proposal for education administration have been
identified, with a 12 year-educational development plan which aims at educational
excellence in the year 2007. In 1998, educational expenditure per head will be adjusted
according to the Ministry of Finance’s regulations:-kindergarten 2,150 baht, primary
3,000 baht, lower secondary 4,000 baht and upper secondary 4,100 baht and upper secondary
4,100 baht per head per year. In practice, however, the government only released 160 baht
in 1995, 170 baht in 1996 and 270 baht in 1997 for every primary school pupil annually. In
an attempt to alleviate the problem of educational spending per head, the Ministry of
Education plans to raise the educational fees for civil servants’ children who are
studying in government schools, in line with those specified by the Ministry of Finance on
the seventh of May 1996. As such fees can be reimbursed from the government via prior
agreement with the Comptroller-General’s Department, Ministry of Finance. This approach
will not pose any financial burden upon civil servants. (Please note that the current
rates of educational fees for secondary education used by the Ministry of Education are in
accordance with those specified for the year 1977.) Thus, in the year 1998, the Ministry
of Education will urge the government to allocate an adequate budget per head; 9) There
are 50% or approximately 20,000 schools under the Education Reform Project which is based
on 4 approaches and the ideal schools as reflected in the ten commandments of the Ministry
of Education. These schools are required to complete their school environment improvement
work by December 1996 in accordance with the 4 approaches. To this end, the Ministry of
Education has allocated 100,000-150,000 baht for each school to renovate its buildings,
for example, with repair work and a new coat of paint as well as creating desirable school
environs. Local communities should be encouraged to participate in school administration
and development by means of identifying problems relating to students, teachers, parents
and curricula. Such co-operation will lead to subsequent solutions. The seminar* today is
intended to divide all participants into small discussion groups using the brainstorming
technique in order to attain practical solutions to the accumulated problems of the
Ministry of Education. Relevant recommendations are also to be presented during this
seminar to assist in promoting educational reform and to focus upon attaining educational
excellence by the year 2007. * The Seminar on Strategy for Education Reform on August 20,
1996 at the United Nations’ Auditorium, Bangkok, Thailand.
What's new details . . .
Copyright ? 1997 MOENet Thailand Service
Program by Mr.Bumrung Chiablam
