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World Bank urges Thailand to urgently tackle education inequality


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World Bank urges Thailand to urgently tackle education inequality

By WICHIT CHAITRONG 
THE NATION

 

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Kiatipong Ariyapruchya World Bank senior economist for Thailand

 

INEQUALITY IN education remains a critical issue for Thailand, which can be tackled by consolidating small schools, the World Bank has suggested.

 

The bank believes such a measure would help improve the quality of education and in effect narrow the widening income disparity.

 

Thai economic growth this year has been forecast to slow to 3.8 per cent, according to the World Bank’s Thailand Economic Monitor released yesterday.

 

The level of inequality in Thailand, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is comparable with peers and it remains an issue that should be a national priority, the World Bank report said on Thailand’s challenges and opportunities in enhancing human capital and reducing inequality. 

 

“The income inequality gap in the last 15 years has narrowed, but it has been flat or has increased over the past few years,” said Kiatipong Ariyapruchya, World Bank senior economist for Thailand.

 

To address inequality, the bank has suggested that the government consolidate small schools nationwide in order to improve quality, he said. 

 

Thailand spends annually about 5 per cent of gross domestic product on education, on par with some of the developed countries, he said. 

 

However, productive spending has to be improved, the bank suggested. 

 

There are too many small schools faced with the trend of a declining number of children and youth.

 

Poor families and households in the rural areas send their children to schools near their homes in order to reduce transport cost.

 

Small schools face shortage of teachers and educational equipment, resulting in poor PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores for the children. 

 

The bank pointed out that Thailand’s quality of education is lower than the Asean average.

 

In Thailand, a child born today will reach only 60 per cent of potential, in terms of productivity and lifetime income. “Unequal quality of education in Thailand is one of the biggest challenges, with poorer areas being under-served,” said the bank. There are approximately 1 million poor children currently getting inferior quality of education. 

 

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Due to under-resourced small schools, with inadequate infrastructure and educational materials, the 12.4 years of basic schooling expected for a child born today in Thailand is equivalent to just 8.6 years – a learning gap of 3.8 years, according to the World Bank. 

 

“Sustaining the peace and quality of structural reforms will be crucial for reducing poverty and raising Thailand’s long-term growth path above 4 per cent in the face of demographic challenges caused by rapid ageing,” said Birgit Hansl, World Bank country manager for Thailand. 

 

Currently there are about 334,000 classrooms nationwide, from kindergarten to grade 12 schools. Thailand could consolidate schools within a 10-20 kilometres radius, which would not much increase the transport cost for families, said Dilaka Lathapipat, World Bank human development economist. The consolidation could bring down the number of classrooms to about 259,000, he said. Then the number of teachers required would be about 370,000. “Currently there are over 400,000 teachers, which means we do not have a shortage of teachers,” said Dilaka. At many small schools, the average class size is 14 children, which is the smallest in the world, compared with 25 on average among developed countries, he said.

 

If school consolidation were to be implemented, the class size would increase to 25 children, he said. 

 

Japan, which faces the problem of an ageing society, has gone through school consolidation and that resulted in higher PISA scores, he noted. 

 

Since 1987, the numbers of children and youth have significantly declined, from over 18 million to 12.5 million last year and is estimated to be 10.5 million in the next 10 years. “The declining trend of children and youth population is obvious, but we never plan to do anything about school consolidation,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, Kobsak Pootrakool, minister attached to the PM’s Office, assured that the government has given priority to solving income inequality. There are many laws designed to empower the poor and people living in rural areas, which will come into effect in the next few months, he said. He agreed that Thailand needed to consolidate small schools.

 

Amid a global slowdown and elevated trade tensions, the Thai economy is projected to grow by 3.8 per cent in 2019 and 3.9 in 2020, according to the World Bank. Export growth is estimated at about 5 per cent this year. A one percentage point slowdown of the US economy would impact about one percentage point of the Thai economy, while a one percentage point deceleration in China’s economy would impact the Thai economy by 0.5 percentage point, said Kiatipong. Political uncertainty is also a risk to the Thai economy because it could delay pubic investment projects, he warned. 

 

Despite external shocks to trade and tourism, the growth of the Thai economy is estimated to have accelerated last year to 4.1 per cent, the report says.

 

It proved to be resilient in the face of strong global headwinds due to strengthening domestic demand, stemming from an upswing in private consumption and private investment.

 

Investing in human capital and pursuing economic reform is critical for Thailand to become a high-income nation with equal opportunities for all citizens, the World Bank said.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/business/30362395

 
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-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-01-17
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45 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thailand spends annually about 5 per cent of gross domestic product on education, on par with some of the developed countries, he said. 

 

However, productive spending has to be improved, the bank suggested. 

Funny. He offers no suggestions for where the money is going. I will help him. It's systemic corruption.

 

He also spends 80% of the article on the poor schools while not mentioning the poorly performing rich ones. Chula, Thammasart, etc. are all crap institutions as well, but how could he criticize the rich without getting himself into serious trouble.

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This is all about saving money !!

Not about improving the standards!

It's all very well to consolidate schools but no mention of the extra hardship for poor parents getting their kids to school on dangerous roads over greater distances.

They are avoiding the main problem that is underfunding of education!

Low pay rates for teachers and a shameful lack of educational materials for schools. I has been shown that smaller class numbers are beneficial since each student gets more individual attention. In contrast larger classes allow weak students to fall behind. 

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4 hours ago, webfact said:

World Bank urges Thailand to urgently tackle education inequality

Well, sometimes I read between the lines and get a different opinion. Could this possibly be a hidden call to revolt? As we all know, educated people tend to choose (elect) their "leaders".

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1 hour ago, StayinThailand2much said:

Thailand's quality of education behind Cambodia's and barely ahead of Myanmar's... priceless!

 

But I guess, they have other priorities in Thailand. ????

The histogram looks questionable I might even say fake news. Singapore is just in front, in reality it is miles in front.

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I'd be interested to know how the director's pay in Thailand compares with that of the nation's ranked above average and how many BM's and Mercs directors in these nations own compared with Thailand. Also, cost of school, as that's the main benefactor of inequality in any country. Anyone going to Eton has far more opportunities in the UK compared with the everyday pasentry in the country.

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6 hours ago, xerostar said:

This is all about saving money !!

Not about improving the standards!

It's all very well to consolidate schools but no mention of the extra hardship for poor parents getting their kids to school on dangerous roads over greater distances.

They are avoiding the main problem that is underfunding of education!

Low pay rates for teachers and a shameful lack of educational materials for schools. I has been shown that smaller class numbers are beneficial since each student gets more individual attention. In contrast larger classes allow weak students to fall behind. 

Thailands education is not underfunded. The budget is very very high. In fact it is the highest among all ministries in Thailand at 523 billion baht for 2019. And its one of the highest in the world believe it or not. You can easily find it on government website page 72 (its in english!)

http://www.bb.go.th/en/topic-detail.php?id=8562&mid=456&catID=0

 

The main problem still lies in corruption and failure to overhaul the education curriculum. So we are stuck in a cycle of mediocre teachers using low quality curriculum. By the time funding trickles down to where its needed the most, its chump change.

 

For the past decades, no prime minister has shown devotion in trying to change that. We have a PM that think buying tablet pcs will make students smarter, we have one that thinks decking out a classroom with state of the art equipment will make a difference, and we have current ones who wants to keep the status quo.

 

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get big joke in on it and he will have it all sorted out in a jiffy.i can't imagine what amount of corruption is involved when there's 523 billion baht in the trough.the whole system needs an army of accounts that won't stick there heads in that trough too.at a guess I would bet half or more of the funds don't reach its destination.when Thais get their sticky fingers into a pie there's not much fruit left for sure.

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Forgive me Mr. World Bank...

 

But in my non bankly opinion, the bigger factors in educational achievement by students are:

--the quality/ability of the teachers teaching them.

--the kinds of curriculum the schools are having the teachers teach

--the home environment of the students that either supports or doesn't support their learning.

 

Too many small schools being the main problem?  I don't think so.

 

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6 hours ago, xerostar said:

They are avoiding the main problem that is underfunding of education!

 

 

Thailand doesn't have an underfunding of education problem, at least at the system level.

 

It has a problem that the funding they DO provide, which ought to be plenty, gets frittered away on corruption, useless projects, and various things that do little to improve students' learning or achievement.

 

It's HOW they're spending their education funds, not how much they're spending.

 

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This is not good news for the General, he's got elections coming soon, the rural area has 70%

of voters, "The Reds". One can understand why he keeps pushing back the elections as far back as he

possibly can, as he is also pressured by the US and the EU to get on with it. He knows they don't like

him up there no matter how hard he tries.

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11 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand could consolidate schools within a 10-20 kilometres radius, which would not much increase the transport cost for families, said Dilaka Lathapipat, World Bank human development economist.

What a drop-kick. A typical statement coming from some city person who has no idea of the time increase to the children and cost increase to the parents.

This must be on their agenda to come up every year as I remember commenting some time ago. The daughter travels 30 km to school and is away for 11 hours with the travel involved.

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To illustrate how much Thailand’s school system is in trouble, the source cited a recent poll, according to which "out of eight subjects, students get a passing mark only in the Thai language. In all other areas they fail to meet international standards." (03/03/2016)

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Thailand-leads-the-world-in-education-spending,-but-with-little-results%3B-some-solutions-exist-36851.html

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11 hours ago, Chippy151 said:

Wait for some government official to announce soon that the problem of educational inequality will be solved by the end of the month.

And that it is caused by the books which don't have good black letters so they're hard to read. That's not the fault of the printers though but it's caused by the inferior paper the books are made from, and that paper was imported from the foreigners.

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22 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Forgive me Mr. World Bank...

 

But in my non bankly opinion, the bigger factors in educational achievement by students are:

--the quality/ability of the teachers teaching them.

--the kinds of curriculum the schools are having the teachers teach

--the home environment of the students that either supports or doesn't support their learning.

 

Too many small schools being the main problem?  I don't think so.

I'd say the biggest problem is the all pervasive maibpenrai attitiude. For Thailand to ever progress, main bpen rai must die.

 

They need to be invaded by an army of protestant crusaders putting proper work ethics into them. I think we'll populate Mars before that happens though.

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