Thailand’s Secondary Education System at a Crossroads: Despite Impressive Increases in Access to School, Challenges Remain

Contacts:

Achariya Kohtbantau
akohtbantau@worldbank.org

Pichaya Fitts
pfitts@worldbank.org

BANGKOK , October 10, 2006 - Thailand has made dramatic improvements in expanding access to secondary education over the past two decades.  In the late 1980s, the country started with one of the lowest secondary enrolment rates in the region, but subsequently picked up the pace in later decades to position itself in the top tier due to dedicated and concerted efforts by the Royal Thai Government.  However, despite important achievements, key issues such as small financial support and low student academic achievement remain to be addressed.  According to a new report produced by the World Bank entitled “Thailand Social Monitor: Improving Secondary Education”embracing educational reforms that will ensure equal access to school, improve the quality of secondary education, and enhance the efficiency of the Thai secondary education system are crucial for Thailand to achieve its objective to provide high quality universal secondary education to all Thai children by 2015. 

Presented and discussed at last week’s Thailand Education Congress on the occasion of the World Teachers’ Day,the report highlights some of the latest developments inThailand ’s secondary education system, and emphasizes the important role secondary education plays in the advancement of Thai society.  “As a critical link between basic education, higher education and the labor market, secondary education has the potential to serve as a pathway for students’ progress and advancement.  However, if not properly used or made available, it can also act as an impediment to economic growth and competitiveness,”stated Mr. Luis Benveniste, Country Sector Coordinator for the World Bank’s Human Development Unit, and one of the main authors of the report. 

Since the 1990’s, the Royal Thai Government (RTG) has made strong efforts to reduce inequities in education participation and as a result, has greatly improved access to secondary education in Thailand.  “Participation rates in secondary education demonstrate that access across gender, the rural-urban divide, regions and socioeconomic status groups has expanded, benefiting all groups in some measures,”Mr. Benvenistehighlighted. 

However, although secondary school enrolment rates have increased significantly, access and equity gaps remain:  “There are still large differences in secondary school enrollment between the poorest and the richest population groups.  Although these differences have narrowed over time, they have remained quite substantial,”Achariya Kohtbantau,consultant forthe World Bank’s Human Development Unit and also author of the report, stated.  Furthermore, “while the urban/rural gap has grown smaller, on average the gender gap has grown significantly larger and to the benefit of girls.”  The report shows that a lack of financial support is still the main barrier preventing children from very poor families from being able to attend or stay in school. 

Another area of concern for Thailand’s secondary education system is student academic achievement. The report shows that although Thailand has higher scores than other countries at similar income levels, suggesting that it has been successful at providing educational services of a certain quality equally across the country, very few Thai children perform above the average level.  On the contrary, a very large number of students are performing below acceptable proficiency levels.  Ms. Kohtbantaustressed that“Thailand had roughly 40 percent of students performing at or below the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) level one in literacy, and over 50 percent of students performing at or below the PISA level one in mathematics. In summary, a vast proportion of students are functioning at or below the most basic level of language, mathematics and science ability.”  Addressing critical factors such as the quality of teachers, and access to school resources and teaching materials is crucial for Thailand to improve the overall performance of students across the country. 

Enhancing the efficiency of the Thai secondary education system will also help improve access to and the quality of secondary education.  Although the RTG allocates more than one fifth of its total budget to education, more than two thirds of the education budget is distributed to basic education, with pre-primary and primary levels receiving the largest proportion.  This means that only 28 percent of Thailand’s total education budget goes to secondary education, falling behind what countries with strong secondary education sectors typically spend.  Moreover, while education receives the largest share of the national budget across sectors, whether those resources are equally and efficiently distributed among different income groups is debatable.   “The poorest 40 percent of the population receives 56 percent of total spending, reflecting a pro-poor allocation of resources.  The distribution of resources for secondary level education is fairly equal; however, spending for tertiary education is clearly regressive.  The wealthiest 20 percent of the population receives 53 percent of total spending,” Ms. Kohtbantau highlighted.

In order to build on the achievements it has attained over the past decade in increasing equal access to secondary school,Thailand is now actively engaged in finding new solutions to the next generation of challenges:  consolidating equitable access, improving quality and enhancing efficiency.  An ambitious education reform program is gathering momentum. 

For more information about the Thailand Social Monitor please click here.