2.4 Targeted financial aid to students. 28 ..... ures about the problem of school dropout in Thailand (chapter 1). In the next .... in farming and retail trade. During ...
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
School dropout in Thailand: causes and remedies
Ides Nicaise* Pawadee Tonguthai** Ilse Fripont*
* HIVA, University of Leuven ** Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University
August 2000
Hoger instituut voor de arbeid
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of abreviations
vii
Introduction
1
1. Background of the study
1
2. Design of the focus group interviews 2.1 Selection of localities and participants 2.2 Profile of respondents 2.3 Questions for focus group interviews 2.4 Content analysis
2 2 3 3 4
3. Structure of the report
5
4. Acknowledgements
6
Chapter 1 / The general context
7
1. The concept of dropout
7
2. The situation in Thailand 2.1 Overall trends 2.2 The impact of the economic crisis of 1997 2.3 Distribution of the dropout rate 2.4 Thammasat University’s survey: the present picture
8 8 9 13 14
Chapter 2 / Poverty
17
1. Rural poverty
18
2. Urban poverty: the example of the slums in Bangkok
19
iv
Table of contents
3. Migrant families
20
4. Conclusion
21
Chapter 3 / The direct costs of education
23
1. Problems
23
2. Remedies 2.1 Achieving free education 2.2 School transport services 2.3 Free lunch provision 2.4 Targeted financial aid to students 2.5 Educational priority areas
25 25 26 27 28 33
3. Conclusion
33
Chapter 4 / The opportunity costs of education
35
1. Problems 1.1 Child labour as a cause of school dropout 1.2 Child labour as a result of school dropout 1.3 Child labour as a facilitator of education 1.4 The general picture in Thailand 1.5 Exploitation
35 36 38 39 39 40
2. Remedies 2.1 Current practice 2.2 Options for the future 2.3 Income generating projects
41 41 43 44
3. Conclusion
46
Chapter 5 / The attractiveness of education
47
1. Resources 1.1 Problems 1.2 Remedies
48 48 52
2. The quality of education 2.1 Problems 2.2 Remedies
53 53 54
Table of contents
3. The expected returns to education 3.1 Problems 3.2 Remedies
v
55 55 57
4. Conclusion
57
Chapter 6 / Social obstacles
59
1. Health 1.1 Problems 1.2 Remedies
60 60 60
2. Handicapped children 2.1 Problems 2.2 Remedies
62 62 62
3. Drugs 3.1 Problems 3.2 Remedies
63 63 64
4. Disrupted family life 4.1 Problems 4.2 Remedies
65 65 67
5. Cultural obstacles 5.1 Problems 5.2 Remedies
69 69 74
6. The student affairs teacher, a factotum
75
7. Conclusion
76
Chapter 7 / Legal and administrative aspects
79
1. Compulsion?
79
2. Entitlement?
81
3. Conclusion
83
Conclusions and recommendations
85
1. The context
85
2. Removing the obstacles in the access to education
86
3. Raising the benefits of education
88
vi
Table of contents
4. Tackling social, cultural and legal barriers
89
5. Preventing future economic shocks that may harm the education system
90
6. Concluding remarks
91
References
93
vii
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS
ADB ASEM BMA Bt DGE HIVA MOE NGO ONEC ONPEC TAO TU
Asian Development Bank Asia Europe Meeting Bangkok Metropolitan Area Baht (Thailand’s national currency) Department of General Education Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid (Higher Institute for Labour Studies) Ministry of Education non-governmental organisation Office of the National Education Commission Office of the National Primary Education Commission Tambon Administration Organisation Thammasat University
1
INTRODUCTION
1. Background of the study In 1990, Jomtien hosted the World Conference ‘Education for all’. This conference launched the ambitious goal of achieving universal primary education by the year 2000. Although this deadline has been moved to 2015, the objective remains a major challenge. It goes without saying that Thailand, after having hosted such a conference, wants to be a good pupil in the international class. At this moment a right to 12 years of free basic education has been established, of which 9 are compulsory. Yet a substantial problem of early dropout persists, both at primary and at secondary level. Moreover, the dropout record has worsened with the economic crash of 1997, which has put the demand as well as the supply side of education under financial pressure. This study is part of a programme launched by Thailand’s Office of the National Education Commission to tackle the dropout problem. It is supported by a grant from the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Trust Fund, administered by the World Bank. The first stage, a sample survey conducted by the Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University (TU), aimed to identify the incidence and distribution of school dropout as well as its main reasons. The main findings of this research (which in fact will be finalised shortly after the second one) are summarised in chapter 1 of our report. This second study contains a qualitative in-depth analysis of the causes and possible remedies to the problem. It is based on a survey of the existing literature, interviews with key persons (government officials, NGO workers, school heads etc.), field visits, workshops and - most importantly - a series of focus group interviews.
2
Introduction
Results of both studies will provide input into the programme’s third stage which aims at developing intervention programmes to cope with early school leaving.
2. Design of the focus group interviews 2.1 Selection of localities and participants Identification of target groups for the focus group interviews was linked to the sample selection and preliminary results of TU’s questionnaire survey which covers three main groups of stakeholders (parents, teachers/administrators, and community leaders) and three regions (North, Northeast, and South). Based partly on those findings, our focus group interviews were conducted with four categories of stakeholders. A very important group of stakeholders has indeed been added, that is, students who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out. The provinces of Tak and Sri Saket were selected from the North and Northeast, respectively. This selection was made in consultation with the Thammasat team (both researchers and regional co-ordinators) based on factors such as: preliminary findings of that team, an interesting range of issues existing in those two provinces, as well as suggestions from the Office of the National Primary Education Commission (ONPEC). In the case of Tak, we have joined the TU team in one field trip and made preliminary contacts. Furthermore, since TU has not covered urban areas, Bangkok Metropolitan Area was included by us as the third site in order to bring an extra dimension to the study by providing insight into the urban situation of the dropout problem. The first focus group in Bangkok also served as a pre-test of the framework we had developed. ONPEC and the Department of General Education (DGE) facilitated the recruitment of the focus group participants in Tak and Sri Saket. Using the schools as the starting point, students who have dropped out or at risk of dropping out were identified, then teachers/administrators, parents and community leaders in the school area were invited to take part in the focus groups. In Tak, the focus groups were held in two districts (Mae Sod and Mae Ramad) with participants coming from eight sub-districts. In Sri Saket we conducted focus groups in two districts (Kukan and Uthumpornpisai) with participants from seven sub-districts. The first focus group in Bangkok was held with the assistance of ONPEC’s education officer who located four schools in Bangkok Metropolitan Area with drop out problems. For the final FGI in the Klong Toey Slum area, we were assisted by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Introduction
3
2.2 Profile of respondents The group composition of participants varies but remains strictly with the four predetermined categories. For each focus group, we have used both ‘homogeneous’ participants (students only, etc.) and mixed groups (all four categories in the same focus group). We have found the second format to be more useful, generating a wide range of data through lively interaction among the participants. In Bangkok, we conducted five focus groups, the first four are students, teachers, parents, community leaders, and the fifth in Klong Toey is a mixed group of all categories of stakeholders. The 41 participants include 12 students, 9 parents, 8 community leaders and 12 teachers/administrators. In the province of Tak, we had 48participants in three mixed focus groups, with 9 students, 9 parents, 13 community leaders and 17 teachers/administrators. In Sri Saket, we had three focus groups, one only with students and two mixed groups. Included in the 39 participants were 9 students, 7 parents, 8 community leaders and 15 teachers/administrators. There was no strict one to one matching between students and parents in our focus groups, some students were living with relatives/guardians or with community leaders. Community leaders (including village heads, NGO workers…) talk about dropout problems from several points of view including from their roles as parents and school committee members. Altogether, 11 focus groups were conducted, with 128 participants: 30 students, 25 parents/guardians, 44 teachers/administrators, and 29 community leaders. Table 1
Composition of the focus groups Bangkok
Tak
Sri Saket
Total
Students Parents/guardians Teachers/administrators Community leaders
12 9 12 8
9 9 17 13
9 7 15 8
30 25 44 29
Total
41
48
39
128
2.3 Questions for focus group interviews Results of Thammasat University’s survey as well as the international literature suggest that economic, social and cultural factors all contribute to school dropout, with poverty as a common problem shared by all regions. It is the root cause leading to several other critical problems, especially migration of parents to find jobs elsewhere and students leaving school to earn additional income for the fam-
4
Introduction
ily. Social factors are dominated by the break up of family as a result of parents’ divorce, separation or death. These insights were the starting point for the focus group interviews which then go on to cover a broad set of questions, including the valuation of education from participants’ perspectives. Dropping out of school can actually be considered a rational choice, depending on (a) the value/utility of school as perceived by the individual, the family, and community, and (b) the obstacles and sacrifices involved. The discussion is aimed at providing a check of all possible reasons for dropping out of school. The topics that were brought up for discussion revolved around the framework prepared by the researchers. Participants were encouraged not only to discuss existing problems and their possible causes but also to offer suggestions for remedies and policy measures. Although the interviews were semi-structured along a common grid in order not to overlook any key issues, they were kept sufficiently ‘open’ to leave room for additional inputs from the participants. The aspects that were explored include: − the education system and the aspirations of young people and their parents − the quality of schools and curriculum − teachers’ workload − cultural barriers and perceptions − working children − school-related expenses − labour market prospects − existing coping strategies The focus groups were conducted by the main Thai researcher with the assistance of local co-ordinators who also helped with the local dialect when necessary. 2.4 Content analysis Modern software nowadays facilitates the treatment of large amounts of interview material and from a variety of perspectives (type of stakeholder, level of education, gender, theme, etc. including crossings of perspectives). Unfortunately, no software appeared to be on the market as yet for the qualitative analysis of Thai text material. Translation of the raw material into English would have involved too high a cost. Hence, given the time and budget constraints of the project, the only alternative was to limit the number of sessions, to use semi-structured interviews, and to carry out the analysis ‘manually’ and in a one-dimensional, just thematic way. Nevertheless, we think that the results are fairly rich and give a lively account of the reality of dropout, particularly in combination with the background material from other sources.
Introduction
5
When examining the outcomes of the focus group interviews, we must acknowledge a quantitative imbalance between the number of ‘useful’ quotations from teachers, school administrators and community leaders on the one hand, and parents and young people on the other. This bias is the obvious consequence of the imbalance in cultural background and social power between the categories interviewed. Teachers have a huge comparative advantage in verbal expression, while the parents and children, mostly from deprived backgrounds, tend to feel uneasy in these sessions - particularly in view of the subject of dropout which inevitably carries a stigma of ‘failure’. We believe, however, that this quantitative imbalance is partly compensated for by the strength and ‘authenticity’ of the testimonies of the latter group. We have also tried to give the parents’ and children’s quotations a key position (for example, in the boxes introducing each chapter) so as to give them more weight. Ideally, however, additional individual and group interviews with parents and children would be needed for a more balanced picture. Note that the views of the four groups are not necessarily contradictory. Teachers sometimes appear to have a remarkable understanding of the living conditions and obstacles to education in disadvantaged households. But it looks like a law in social psychology that ‘third parties’ inevitably tend to blame actors when they lack background information about the factors triggering a particular ‘deviant’ behaviour. Teachers do not always elude this rule. The reader should keep this warning in mind when reading quotations from others than parents and children.
3. Structure of the report Our report is structured in a thematic way, with each chapter combining inputs from the literature, the face-to-face interviews and the focus group sessions. We also preferred to mix the discussion of the causes of dropout and its possible remedies. We start from a macro-perspective and summarise some facts and figures about the problem of school dropout in Thailand (chapter 1). In the next chapters, the decision to stay on or leave school is analysed as the outcome of a rational choice process, which depends, on the one hand, on the value/utility of school for the individual and community and, on the other hand, on the obstacles and sacrifices requested. Chapters 2 to 4 deal with the obstacles (poverty, the costs of education, and child labour), whereas chapter 5 discusses problems relating to the attractiveness of education. As the rational choice model does not cover all relevant aspects, other - mainly social - obstacles are dealt with in chapter 6. The final chapter before the conclusions discusses legal and administrative aspects of the problem.
6
Introduction
4. Acknowledgements Before presenting the results of the research we would like to thank the many persons who contributed to it: our commissioner, ONEC, the World Bank and the ASEM Trust Fund; Ms Nonglak Phaholvech, Ms Penpitt Si-Arun, Mrs Oranooch Cooparat, Dr. Kasama Voravarn Na Ayudhaya, Dr. Bangorn Sereerat, Ms.Yureerat Kittiphumchai, Mr. Phusit Phromton, Mr. Somjit Koptostatham, Mr. Chavalit Manhapol, and Dr. Rucha Debavalya. We are also grateful to all respondents to interviews and participants in focus groups, and to our colleagues from Thammasat University.
7
CHAPTER 1 THE GENERAL CONTEXT
1. The concept of dropout There is no clear answer as to why it is so difficult to universalise education. The reasons differ from one country to another and are strongly influenced by differences in their history, culture, economy and (general and educational) policy. In this paper we will explore possible causes to explain why education in Thailand has not (yet) been universalised. Starting from these causes, measures will then be discussed that could be effective in the implementation of universal education. Colclough (1993) outlines a conceptual framework for use when considering the problem of universal education. He uses two possible definitions of universal education. The first key notion is ‘universal primary education (UPE)’, which is ‘the circumstance of having a gross primary enrolment ratio of 100 or more’.1 If this ratio is 100, the number of children attending primary school is equal to the size of the corresponding age group (which does not necessarily mean that all children are enrolled, as some of the enrolled children may not belong to the corresponding age group). The second concept is ‘schooling for all (SFA)’, which refers to ‘the circumstance of having a school system in which all eligible children are enrolled in schools of at least minimally acceptable quality’. UPE is a necessary precondition for achieving SFA, but it is insufficient in itself. There are both quantitative and qualitative elements involved. Education can only be said to be genuinely universal if SFA is achieved. Although the latter concept is undoubtedly more correct, gross enrolment rates (the criterion corresponding with UPE) are more easy to measure and therefore still quite commonly used. The decline of the gross enrolment rate in Thai primary education illustrates well some of the fallacies of the criterion. The ratio dropped from 100.4% in 1990 to 90% in 1996. While this seems to suggest a sharpening of the dropout problem, it is 1
Gross enrolment ratio = number of students in a given cycle of education / number of children in the corresponding age group.
8
Chapter 1
more likely to result from the shift of intake from primary towards pre-primary education (which was non-existent until 1990).2 Other problems with the gross enrolment criterion are (a) that figures fluctuate up and down proportionately to repetition rates, (b) that they are biased upwards by the inclusion of ‘early entrants and late leavers’, and (c) that population statistics (about the corresponding age group) are often based on projections and therefore subject to a margin of error. The concept of dropout itself is equally ambiguous. In the narrowest sense, it refers to enrolled students who stay away from school for more than a given number of days without migrating with their parents.3 According to this criterion, ONPEC (2000) estimated the dropout rate at no more than 0.41% of the Thai primary school population in the school year 1999.4 An intermediate concept of dropout means that once enrolled students leave education before completing a given cycle. For example, the Thai Ministry of Education uses cohort samples to calculate ‘survival rates’ for those entering primary or secondary education. Of all enrolees in grade 1 of primary school, 94% complete it, whereas (somewhat less than) 6% drop out over time.5 We will adopt a third, yet broader definition including those who do not even enrol (e.g. some street children, handicapped children, children from refugees, ethnic minorities or children in remote rural areas) and covering the entire school career until the legal school leaving age. In the case of Thailand, the current norm relating to minimum achievement level is lower secondary education; it is expected to shift to upper secondary in the future, as ‘basic education for all’ is one of the targets of current educational policy (ONEC, 1999). In the present context, therefore, we will define dropouts as all children that either do not enter education, or leave it without completing lower secondary education. This definition is undoubtedly more in line with the objective of ‘schooling for all’.
2. The situation in Thailand 2.1 Overall trends When analysing school enrolment trends in Thailand, one must take into consideration the demographic revolution of the past three decades. Due to a dramatic decline in fertility rates, the share of the population of school-going age is steadily 2 3 4 5
Prior to the introduction of pre-primary education, parents used to send their children to primary earlier. Migrating children are not included in Thai dropout statistics because they might pursue their education in the receiving region. Casual information suggests that this figure is in itself substantially underestimated, as school principals tend to underreport dropout in order to maximise their subsidies (for the school lunch programme). Education for All Assessment 2000, Office of the Permanent Secretary for Education. Note that a survival rate of 100% is impossible for physical reasons alone.
The general context
9
shrinking after having reached a peak around 1970. This has not been reflected in the school population until recently, because it was compensated by increasing participation rates The recent downturn in absolute numbers of students at some levels of education may result from a combination of demographic decline with stagnating participation rates. This decline in absolute numbers therefore can not as such be considered a sign of dropout. This demographic factor has indeed had a double positive influence on education. On the demand side, as family size declined, parents could afford more education for their children; on the supply side, the provision of education could eventually follow the rising demand. Demographic and economic factors are interwoven. Thailand underwent a period of tremendous economic growth between 1988 and 1996. Due to this period of success Thai families became wealthier (demand for education) and educational provision improved (supply of schooling), with the result that more and more children attended school. At the same time, the comparative advantages of the national economy in the global context shifted away from a typical ‘low-wage economy’ due to wage increases, resulting in delocalisation of low-wage industries. This necessitated higher investments in human capital in order to preserve Thailand’s competitive position. Rural Thailand also witnessed a ‘technological revolution’, with the generalisation of water provision and the substitution of tractors for buffaloes, which relieved many children from labour in the family farm.6 By 1997 the gross enrolment rate in primary education had reached 90.8%; in lower secondary education it had reached 76%, and in upper secondary 48% (ONEC 1997; ONEC 1999). Thanks to the ‘Expansion of opportunity in lower secondary education campaign’ the transition rate from primary into lower secondary education rose between 1987 and 1997 from 41% to 88% (Chinnapat Bhumirat et al., 1995; ONEC 1999). The proportion of 13-14 year old children in the labour market also fell from 40% in 1988 to less than 10% in 1996, and this positive effect was most clearly felt in rural areas (Baker, 1999). 2.2 The impact of the economic crisis of 1997 With the economic crisis and the devaluation of the Thai Baht in 1997, this positive evolution seemed to be suddenly perturbed. In what follows we will comment on some figures to explore the possible impact of this crisis on education in Thailand.
6
Interview with S. Baker (Child Workers in Asia), 24th March 2000
10
Chapter 1
The evolution of school enrolment since the crisis has been a highly controversial issue. On the one hand, ONEC estimated that close to 126,000 children had dropped out of primary education during the 1997-98 academic year, while 276,000 left immediately after primary or lower secondary school. The Brooker Group et al. (1999) mention increases in dropout numbers of 40,000 in 1997 and 130,000 in 1998. Focus on the Global South (an NGO based in Thailand) found a tripling of dropout between 1996 and 1998, with over 675,000 children dropping out in 1998. A lot of parents also moved their children from the more expensive private schools to the public education system. On the other hand, according to the findings of the World Bank (Shivakumar, 1999) and the Thai National Economic and Social Development Board (1999) gross enrolment rates continued to grow despite the crisis.7 Note that these findings are not necessarily contradictory: it is possible that enrolment and dropout rise simultaneously if children are removed from school in the course of the school year.
Source: ONEC (1999, p. 122) Figure 1.1
7
Evolution of gross enrolment rates, by level of education
According to a third source, the Socio-Economic Survey, the dropout rate, defined as ‘the children in the school age population not attending school’ fell between 1996 and 1998. The largest fall was observed in the pre-school age (from 59% to 49%); at primary level the number of dropouts fell from 3% to 2%; in lower secondary education from 7% to 6.7% and in upper secondary education from 32.7% to 29%. However, these figures seem to underestimate the real level of dropout.
The general context
11
Although the aggregate figures tend to confirm the steady rise in gross enrolment, (see figure 1) some more sensitive parameters point to a genuine crisis. If we consider the number of children making the transition from primary to lower secondary and from lower secondary to upper secondary education, we see that these transitional moments have come under pressure due to the crisis. The largest number of pupils who drop out do so at these key moments (Shivakumar, 1999). This drop in transition rates at the margin is in fact hidden in the aggregate enrolment rates (which includes more cohorts of students).8
Source: ONEC (1999, p. 123) Figure 1.2
Trends in transition rates between levels of education
The reverse side of the coin was child labour. Statistics from the Labour Force Survey displayed a (slight) upward jump in the number of 13-14 year old workers in 1997, in sharp contrast with the 67% fall in the five previous years - and despite the difficulties in finding employment. The rise in child labour was concentrated in farming and retail trade. During the next year, the proportion of children in the labour force declined again, although farm labour continued to increase. The fact that the latter type of employment is in turn decreasing since 1999 allows one to assume that the crisis is now largely overcome.9
8
9
In mathematical terms, the decrease in inflow rates into lower and upper secondary mean that the ‘second derivative’ of the school population trend becomes negative, whereas the ‘first derivative’ (inflow minus outflow) remains positive. Hence, the findings of ONEC (1997) and the Brooker Group et al. (1999) do not contradict the increase in gross enrolment statistics. Interview with S. Baker (Child Workers in Asia), 24th March 2000
12
Chapter 1
Source: S. Baker (Child Workers in Asia) Figure 1.3
Percentage of 13-14 year olds in the labour force
The crisis was obviously also felt by public authorities. According to data from the Ministry of Education10 and the World Bank, the national education budget increased by an average of 19% per annum from 1992 to 1997. Between 1997 and 1999 this budget has remained constant in real terms. The Thai Government has therefore remained faithful to its investments in education. However, as enrolment rates continued to rise and a shift occurred from private to public education, real expenditures per child decreased sharply, by about 12% in 1997-98 (Thai Social Monitor, July 1999). It must be noted that statistics about education in Thailand diverge widely, even between publications of the MOE (ONEC, 1997, 1999; Brooker Group et al., 1999, ch. 4 p. 4). As a consequence, since the crisis began schools have been facing financial insecurity, also because of irregular payments and reductions in non-governmental resources. Schools have tried to bridge this gap by using donations (money and food) from families and local authorities, by making use of unused rooms and by doubling up the use of school equipment. Many schools had to economise even on
10 MOE, 1998 educational statistics in brief, Bureau of Policy and Planning, Office of the Permanent Secretary, MOE.
The general context
13
the school milk and/or free lunch programmes, by providing these services on a rotation basis (Brooker Group et al., 1999).11 These uncertainties have added to previously ongoing economies on teaching personnel in primary schools, as student-teacher ratios were systematically being raised. The Government introduced measures to protect vulnerable groups, such as spreading payments and waiving of school fees for individuals, scholarships, an expansion of the educational loans programme and advising private schools to extend deadlines for payments (Shivakumar, 1999). 2.3 Distribution of the dropout rate Note that all dropout figures in the previous subsection reflect aggregate trends. The school dropout crisis can be suspected to be a highly selective phenomenon from which weaker social groups suffered disproportionately, even though average participation rates continued to increase. The economic crisis indeed has triggered unemployment, underemployment, inflation (including rises in food prices) and a dramatic fall in real wages. Children of the poor, of unemployed and low-wage workers seem to have suffered most (Brooker Group et al., 1999). The drop-out rate among poor households is twice as high as average (Shivakumar, 1999). Other short-term symptoms of the crisis relating to the well-being of at-risk children include an increase in underweight of school children, a doubling of the number of drug-related juvenile delinquency, and a rising number of street children. No major shifts in school dropout pattern between boys and girls have been perceived in Thailand. At the outbreak of the crisis, girls outscored boys in educational participation at all levels except primary, and this pattern has not changed. Whereas some sources allege that the boys’ share in dropout figures (in poorer schools and regions) exceeds 60% (Brooker Group et al., 1999), others claim that Buddhist schools provide an exclusive safety net through free education for boys. Baker (1999) reports higher dropout rates among girls in 1997, then among boys in 1998. The breakdown of figures by level of education shows that pre-primary and secondary education are affected most, while dropout rates in primary education remained nearly constant. The most critical moments in the educational career are the transitions from primary to lower secondary - and from lower to upper secondary education (ONEC, 1999; Brooker Group et al., 1999).
11 This was confirmed by our own interviews with school principals.
14
Chapter 1
The regional pattern is not very clear: Bangkok and the North display better than average transition rates, while the Northeast and the extreme South perform worse. However, there are wide variations within regions. Rural areas (where about half of the population lives) traditionally display significantly higher dropout rates (particularly at pre-school level and secondary level), but there, too, the total number of dropouts is falling. 2.4 Thammasat University’s survey: the present picture A questionnaire survey was carried out by Dr. Dow and associates from TU, almost simultaneously with our own research. The sample covered 1,073 schools during school year 1999 in three regions: the North, the Northeast and the South. Apart from written questionnaires addressed to teachers and parents, the research team also conducted a series of field visits and interviews with various stakeholders. The aim of the survey was (a) to obtain a precise picture of the extent and distribution of the problem; (b) to collect preliminary information about probable causes as well as opinions about remedies. It should be kept in mind that the dropout rates estimated on the basis of the survey were defined in the narrow sense (pupils dropping out during the school year, including migration). The figures were slightly lower in primary than in lower secondary education (1.04% in ONPEC schools versus 1.58% in DGE schools). The South scored much more unfavourably than the two other regions. Peaks were registered in the first year of primary education in the South, and in the fifth year of primary school in the North. The problems were attributed partly to economic and partly to social reasons. Economic causes include poverty, migration, child labour, the low valuation of education and inadequate funding of schools. Social problems refer to drug addiction, family disruption, abandonment by parents, spoiled children, poor health, while cultural factors include the lack of role models in the local community, early marriage among hill tribe children in the North and Islam in the South. The survey team also contained questions about possible solutions and the obstacles to such solutions. Here the views diverged partly between (groups of) stakeholders. While all interviewed persons (teachers, parents and community leaders) stressed the importance of sensitisation and improved communication between parties, community leaders tended to emphasise the need for disciplinary measures, parents advocated income generating projects at school, free services, and remedial courses. To sum up, demand for education has been rising steadily over the past decade, and is apparently sufficiently strong to lead families to invest more in education despite the crisis. Nonetheless, although the crisis has not (yet) had a drastic effect
The general context
15
on school dropout, the many children/young people who are not going to school are still a priority - particularly in the light of the new Constitution, which guarantees the right to (at least) 12 years of education to each child. Aggregate trends may also disguise disparities in dropout by social background. Indeed, the TU survey pointed at a range of causes of dropout that are mostly related to preexisting problems such as poverty and social deprivation.
17
CHAPTER 2 POVERTY
“My family is so poor, with seven children, that I had to stop my education last year. Both my parents are day labourers, which pays them 70 baht a day. My house is also quite far away from the school, 6-8 kilometres, and some days it was very difficult to travel, especially when it rains. I want to continue because if I go out and work now, my qualification will earn me very little money. I want to have as much education as possible so I can help improve my village, maybe they can put a school there and I can teach. I can only take courses at the non-formal centre now, but I can’t go anywhere, transportation is too expensive. I hope to work at the same time to earn some money. Most days I just help my mother and occasionally I would be hired to plant the corn. I have worked for money since I was 11-12, during the weekend, helping teachers in the meeting, or looking after the neighbours’ cattle. They pay me about 30-40 baht a day. I gave most of that to my parents and kept a little bit for books or some candy.” (a 16-year-old girl in Tak who dropped out after completing Mathayom 3)
Households have to make substantial investments in education - so substantial that they can be out of proportion with the available resources. To begin with, the relation between poverty and school dropout can be observed on the macro-level, in regional statistics. In Yasothorn, a province in the Northeast of Thailand with an average yearly household income of Baht 19,900, the enrolment rate in primary education is only 73.5% compared with a national average of 92% (Chuachan Chongsatityoo, 1999). Similar relationships between income and educational participation can be observed in micro-data. Apart from household income, other influential factors are household size and the number of children going to school. There is also a correlation between the educational level of the head of the family and the amount which is spent on education. And yet households sacrifice a lot for education. An analysis of household expenditure has shown that since the crisis in Thailand a significantly smaller proportion of household income has been spent on alcohol, tobacco, other luxury goods, household products, clothing, shoes, transport and medical services. The share of the household income that is spent on food, housing, education and medical sup-
18
Chapter 2
plies has risen in relative terms, but not in absolute terms. This trend was evident among both poorer and richer households (Shivakumar, 1999). Thai families are aware of the link between education and income. The economic crisis has once again made this clear; those people who only have a primary education diploma or less were hit the hardest. Nonetheless, they are continuing to invest in their children’s education. Households use all kinds of strategies to keep their children at school; apart from economising on non-essential items, they use their savings, borrow money from informal sources, take part in national loan and scholarship programmes and/or reduce the cost of education by sending their children to public instead of private schools. The opportunities are still limited, however, and for the poorest people they have been restricted even more. There is a significant link between poverty and a child’s educational opportunities, so we will begin by looking in detail at a few general characteristics of poor families. Poverty is linked, among other things, to poor housing, nutritional and educational problems, social isolation, lower life-expectancy and large households. Poor families have little access to knowledge, including knowledge about good nutrition, hygiene or health care. They also have less access to social services and infrastructure (such as education). Even if these services are available in their neighbourhood, the threshold that they need to cross in order to make use of them is higher.
1. Rural poverty Poverty has a regional dimension; conditions are more severe in rural than in urban areas. A study in 1981 found that 75% of Thai poor rural households work on their own farms. They rarely earn enough to survive, however, so they need to take several jobs. The remaining 25% are mainly landless day labourers. The rural poor spend the major part of their income on food. Since they consume more food than they produce, they are highly dependent on the local food market. The result of this is that poor households are vulnerable to unexpected setbacks such as poor weather conditions or the loss of a breadwinner. There is also a gender dimension: poor women are at a significantly greater disadvantage than poor men. They have (even) poorer working conditions, (even) lower pay and (even) less access to food, health care and education. What is more, a larger proportion of the woman’s than the man’s income is spent on food and basic welfare (Bennett, 1993 & Global Aid Issue 2, 1996).
Poverty
19
Rural communities have to some extent been protected from the crisis because they are less integrated into the formal economy and because the increased food prices also raised their incomes. Nonetheless, several factors have deteriorated the situation of the rural poor during the crisis in East Asia. Landless farmers saw their real wages decline; those who were insufficiently self-supporting had to pay more for their own food; and the re-migration of laid-off workers from urban centres to their villages has meant an additional burden. During hard times such as the 1997 crisis, therefore, children have to supplement their parents’ earnings. “Their parents are poor farmers with little or no education. So as soon as the kids are old enough to work they will be put to work helping the family. Although they want to study, they also have to eat.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
2. Urban poverty: the example of the slums in Bangkok Living conditions in Bangkok can also be extremely precarious. Approximately 20% of the population live in slums (this includes approximately 1,200,000 people). These slums provide affordable housing for many low-paid workers. The houses are not registered, and as a result the inhabitants have no right to public utilities such as clean water, an adequate drainage system and electricity. Many children do not have birth certificates. Without a birth certificate or a house registration they cannot obtain a citizen’s card, and without this card they are not admitted to state schools. Many families are ‘broken’. Social and financial influences create feelings of alienation among the children. In Klong Toey, a well-known disadvantaged community in Bangkok, many of the parents work as labourers at the port, where 95% of the workers have work only on Thursday and Friday, especially in periods of recession. The earnings range from 150 to 300 baht a day, and they are uncertain, definitely not enough to feed the family. Families are caught into spirals of debt and exploited by ‘loan sharks’: “This community has problems with interest rates, 2% per day. If they don’t pay back the interest keeps compounding, in one year 1,000 baht can become 200,000 baht. Then the lender will confiscate the house, so they run away and take the children with them. This is a big problem, the loan shark.” (a community leader in Klong Toey)
ATD-Fourth World and other NGOs estimate that 20% of the children in Klong Toey are not finishing primary school, and this number is growing (ATD-Fourth World, 2000). Parents simply cannot afford their children’s school costs and cannot secure the loans they would need to cover the costs since they do not own any-
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thing that they could use to secure the loans. Sometimes even when children have completed and passed their exams, they cannot afford to pay for the certificate that proves their success (Duang Prateep Foundation, 1999). No wonder, community organisations have to work hard convincing young people to stay on at school. “Sometimes we have to understand and accept that they do it for their survival, and they really need the children’s help. Education is only accessory in life, survival is more important. If no one will help us we cannot push on for education, what are we going to eat tomorrow? Education can’t fill our stomach.” (a 49-year-old grandfather with Prathom 4 education) “I have lived here for 33 years and I want to tell the students that money can be gone in so short a time but education stays with you till the day you die. So do not give up, work hard. Here we are surrounded by bad influence, at home and in the community. At least we are lucky that the school is open for the community, allows the families with problems to discuss them, now the students are better dressed, have better manners, have shoes to wear. Ten years ago there was a drugs problem but now hardly any.” (An NGO worker in Klong Toey)
3. Migrant families Migrants constitute a particular problem, although migrating families are not necessarily to be identified as poor. Thailand has a large number of legal and illegal immigrants (according to some sources, their number is estimated at 2-3 million). Many Thai workers also migrate within their country. The main economic activities involving large numbers of migrants are seasonal work in the rubber and sugar cane plantations in the Central region; construction work; and fishery. The hill tribes in the North of the country traditionally migrate as well (within the region as well as across the Burmese border). Finally, there is a continuous migration flow of young people from rural areas towards the cities (and Bangkok in particular). “Most of them go to the eastern region - Rayong, Cholburi, Chantaburi - to work in the rubber plantations. The students can help with rubber tapping but if where they stay is too far from schools the parents with no motorcycle cannot take them to school, especially if they have no interest in their children’s education anyway. As a village leader, I used to follow them there and ask to send their children back to stay with their grandparents.” (A village head, chairman of Tambon Organisation Administration and chair of the school committee)
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“My father is a long distance truck driver and he often takes me along, I sometimes miss school for more than a week at a time and cannot catch up with the rest of the class.” (a boy in Sri Saket)
Migration does not necessarily take place over a long distance to another province or region; it can actually be over a relatively short distance, from the village to the fields across the mountains. In the harvest season, some farmers use to sleep in a cottage near the fields and take the children with them. It can also be just for a few days at a time but still make the children miss some classes, fall behind in their work and ultimately drop out. As mentioned above, the 1997 crisis has triggered an inverse migration flow, back to the countryside. This also has affected school dropout to some extent. In the same period, hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrants have been repatriated by force. Some Thai families that did business with them left the country too. The vacancies in enterprises created by this emigration also attracted a number of early school leavers. As children mostly migrate with their families (boarding schools being too expensive), their school career is interrupted again and again. Some ‘migrating schools’ do exist, but they are most exceptional. In some cases, children are left behind in the village, relying on themselves, on older siblings or the extended family. “We do not have any programme to help the students of migrating parents, they take care of themselves. The most we can do is find them some financial aid, help them with their necessities-clothes, whatever. If we have some works to do at school that need an extra hand, we ask them to help so they can have some cash.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
Migration accounts for more dropout during the school year than all other causes taken together.12 Yet, migration is not registered as permanent dropout because the children may enrol in other schools in the ‘receiving region’.
4. Conclusion Although Thai households generally seem to be willing to sacrifice a lot to their children’s education, the struggle for daily survival still appears to constitute a greater priority for many. The economic crisis has added to this through rising food prices, falling wages and unemployment. Related problems include ‘illegal’ slum dwelling, migration, child labour, exploitation by loan sharks etc. 12 According to official figures from the Ministry of Education on school interruptions during the school year, migration amounts to 0.74% of the total population of primary school children, whereas other causes taken together account for 0.41%.
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All these factors mainly relate to household income as a determinant of investments in education. In the next two chapters, we will concentrate on the cost side of education.
23
CHAPTER 3 THE DIRECT COSTS OF EDUCATION
“I have just stopped going to school for one week because I have no money for the bus, for the books. My aunt has four children of her own so nothing for me. My parents separated a long time ago, both are now working in Bangkok. Only my mother sends money sometimes. I don’t know what she does. She comes back during songkran and Chinese new year and leaves some money with the aunt. I used to miss school for a few days at a time whenever I had no money for the bus - about 4 baht a day. The reason I came back is because my teacher came to my house and asked me to come back.” (a 13-year-old boy in Sri Saket, Mathayom 2)
1. Problems Whereas the previous chapter was focussed on the impact of household resources, the present chapter deals with the issue of educational expenses. The expenses incurred by parents for their child’s education are what we call the direct costs of education. These direct costs include school fees and costs of uniforms, school books, school equipment, transport and meals (Watkins, 1999). Transportation and the uniform are often the most expensive elements. Local authorities may also ask for contributions towards various facilities and services such as the use of school buildings or for sporting activities. Other expenses such as those required for attending computer classes have become an extra burden to parents although schools tend not to be very strict about payment on time. Parents, however, do whatever they can to fulfil this obligation. An official estimate of direct private costs of education has been made by the Thai Ministry of Education (MOE) on the basis of the 1996 Socioeconomic Survey. The amount for primary education was about 600 Bt per year, for lower secondary education 842 Bt, for upper secondary 1465 Bt. Note that these figures are probably outdated because of the inflation that accompanied the 1997 crisis. For example, the costs of transportation have approximately doubled since the crisis. In relative terms, households seem to incur 34% of total educational expenses (Sirilaksana, 1999 - quoted in ONEC, 1999).
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For the poorest families the cost of education can be a reason to keep their children at home (Chowdhury, 1994; Secretary of Labor, 1998). Yet, they have various strategies for coping with the fact that they cannot pay for schooling costs. The first strategy is obviously the choice for public instead of private schools, as public education is less expensive. A second strategy is to withhold or to attempt to delay payments. Thai schools have been relatively tolerant in this regard after the crisis. “The teacher will say to me, ‘if you do not have money now, I will give you three months.’ The teachers are kind to us, but I see there are others who are even in more trouble so I try to find the 400 baht that is required.” (a mother in Bangkok)
Other strategies are not to buy all the necessary school equipment or to buy equipment of lower quality, to send only some of their children to school or to develop ways of increasing the family income such as a job for the children after school hours (Watkins, 1999). Sometimes children are not given enough to eat at home or they have to miss the school meal (World Bank, 1999). Unfortunately, dropping out is also one of the responses: “I dropped out one time because I had no money to buy a school bag. I live with my aunt, she has two children younger than me, she earns 100 baht a day from work as a labourer. She told me to quit. Her own children never miss school.” (a 15-year-old boy in Sri Saket)
For students in rural areas, transportation cost can easily become the most expensive elements of private costs of education. Schools located in the districts and in town are spared such problems but those in the outer areas suffer most. No school bus is provided. Students either walk or use public transportation, ride bicycle or motorcycle. Sometimes transportation is being provided either by tambons or by the private sector. Parents admit that this extra expense is something they cannot afford to come up with on a daily basis and they would have little to argue if the children use that as an excuse to stay at home. “We hardly have money for their daily expenses, how can we afford to pay for the bus?” (a father in Tak) “When the kids cannot get money from parents, they refuse to go and if it happens often, they will simply quit.” (a community leader in Tak)
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2. Remedies 2.1 Achieving free education A first objective is of course the achievement (and enforcement) of free education. Whereas the government have little legal power over costs in private education, they have imposed strict rules on public schools. We can divide the direct costs of schooling into several groups. − First of all, tuition fees have been banned in public education, first in primary, now in secondary education (1999-2002). Extra operating subsidies have been introduced to compensate schools for this loss of revenues. For private schools, a ceiling has been imposed on tuition fees, although the schools can charge parents for other types of expenses. − Secondly, there are costs which are unavoidable in order to participate fully in education. Examples of this include school books, writing material and exercise books. Textbooks are being provided free of charge to the 30% poorest children in primary education (see below). The funding is allocated to schools, where selection committees have to decide on the eligibility of individual pupils. A sensitisation campaign has been conducted (including TV spots) and complaints from parents (addressed to the administration) can result in sanctions for the schools involved. It may be worthwile to include checks by third parties, such as local authorities (Watkins, 1999; Chowdhury, 1994; World Bank, 1999). Note that this system has not been extended to secondary education as yet. − Thirdly, there are some school-related costs which do not influence the quality of the teaching process, such as the school uniform. In many countries school uniforms, however, cost as much as or more than the relevant school equipment. In the context of the ‘educational expansion campaign’, the rules on school uniforms have already been relaxed in Thailand. Yet the government have not decided to abolish school uniforms, partly because the majority of the parents seems to prefer uniforms, and partly because the uniform makes social inequality less visible. In primary education, free uniforms are being provided to the poorest 10% of the pupils. Guidelines have also been issued as regards the average price of a uniform. If these guidelines are met, it can be assumed that uniforms are not more expensive than regular clothing. Yet, regular clothing can itself be a burden on the family budget: “True, we got two free uniforms from the school but on the mountain sometimes it rains a lot and the uniforms do not get dried in time.” (a community leader in Tak)
Admittedly, public education in Thailand is fairly accessible in terms of costs except for transportation. In Bangkok, community leaders even insist that the
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direct cost of school is no longer a deterrent for students but the attitudes of the parents are more important. Parents seem to have little interest in education despite all the measures the schools provide: free clothes, books, lunch, plus financial aid. “I don’t think money is the issue because everything is free, going to school does not cost anything. There are so many scholarships for students in this community but we are not sure that the parents will let the children go to school after getting the money. School lunch here is buffet style, they can eat all they want to, and they also live around here, no travel expenses at all. So, you see, money is not the problem, it’s the parents’ strong belief about the value of education that is so hard to change” (a community leader in Klong Toey)
Other parties definitely do not share this opinion. The private costs are still thought to be substantial, and the question arises what priorities should be set. 2.2 School transport services Schools have taken the commuting problem seriously and ONPEC has allocated a budget so that schools in remote areas can assist students who have to travel more than 3 kilometres to school. Unfortunately, the budget has been cut recently which caused great concern during the time we held the focus group interviews in Tak. Parents, teachers and community leaders joined in long debates on the negative effects that could have on school attendance unless something can be done urgently. “The school bus is the best option for our village due to the long distance of 6 kilometres. Currently we are using a pick up bus owned by one of our teachers, no one else would take it. Our school is so far away that, without this school bus, no more than 30 out of 85 students would be able to come to school - only those who can afford the busfare.” (a teacher in Tak)
The only thing they cannot agree on is who should shoulder the burden. Teachers feel that parents should take in part or all of the burden, especially those who can afford it but have chosen to spend their money on ‘less important’ items. The community leaders have also suggested interesting ideas for daily control and monitoring but the teachers are concerned about the expenses because they are restricted by the regulations. “We should talk to the parents, they all love their children. Let’s see whether the parents are trying hard enough. If they do and still cannot afford the bus fare then we should help. If they work one day, lying around the next two days, then why should the government bear the burden for these children? I say again that the parents have to do their best first, then the government and the school can step in” (a community leader in Tak)
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“I would like the school to arrange for a minibus for all students living further than 3 kilometres from the school. Let the villagers who own the bus bid for it, and just pay them instead of paying daily cash to the students.” (a community leader in Sri Saket) “The schools cannot do that or the parents may complain because the bus fare account requires the students’ signatures, we need to have them per head per day, according to the distance of their house from school, whether they use it or not. It’s against the regulation to use other methods” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
2.3 Free lunch provision In ONPEC’s schools, lunch is provided to children with malnutrition and from poor families. In practice, schools try to offer it to everybody from kindergarten to Prathom 3. Students are required to bring with them only plain rice and get other food at school. Teachers admit that food quality may not be ideal, but there is a trade off with more quantity so everyone will have a chance to have them for free. Parents may not give the children enough to eat at home, especially for breakfast, expecting them to have a big lunch at school. They may have to leave home early for the work and give the children some cash to take care of their own breakfast but the children opt to keep the money for something else. Bangkok teachers talked about some children fainting in the morning and now give them milk in the morning --some schools do that at 8 a.m. just before going into classroom - instead of at lunch or in the afternoon. BMA schools are luckier in this respect with the recent budget allocation for free lunch for all children - though its continuity is uncertain since the measure was taken by the previous governor. Some schools even have ways of giving children breakfast without causing them embarrassment by putting milk and cookies in the library. Older students, or those who are not satisfied with lunch provided by the school, can buy other things from the food vendors and this has created further problems. Students will be embarrassed if they have to bring something from home while their friends have money to eat what they like. “The students will not bring anything from home but prefer to buy things, even a piece of lemon, a clove of garlic. So they will put pressure on the parents ‘ if I do not have 2-3 baht to school I will not go’. This is what they believe in now - consumerism. The point is how to avoid them pressuring their parents which could cause the parents to migrate to find extra work and cash, which creates another problem. This is getting worse all the time.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
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“If I give him lunch from home, he will be ashamed for the girls, for his friends, if he does not have money he will sneak away at lunch time. I do not have money to give him everyday.” (a father in Sri Saket)
The example above illustrates the delicate issue of social inequality as it appears through daily consumption patterns at school. It shows the need to treat all students as equally as possible in lunch provision, either free or paying. Maybe prices can be differentiated by age group, with free lunch for the youngest children and a choice between a (paying) lunch provided by the school or food brought from home for the rest. 2.4 Targeted financial aid to students Whereas it is hard to target support at the most needy students in their daily expenses, targeting financial aid in the form of student grant and loan schemes is easier to implement. Grants In 1998 the Thai government (with support from the ADB’s ‘Social Sector Programme Loan’) have introduced grants for pupils in primary and lower secondary education, targeted at dropouts who returned to school in the next academic year as well as students whose parents were severely affected by the crisis (incomes below 120,000 Bt/year). The amount of the grant is a lump sum of 4000 Bt for primary school pupils and 5000 at secondary level. Schools have to select the applicants and submit lists to the MOE. Novices in schools for ecclesiastics all receive a grant of 2000 Bt. 328,000 grants have been allocated in 1999: note that this means no more than 4% of all enrolees. Payments are made in two instalments, one at the beginning and one at the end of the school year. Unfortunately, the grants have now been suppressed due to expiration of the ADB loan that was used to fund them. Admittedly, the generalisation of free (public) education, at least in principle, will mitigate the negative impact of this measure. Loans In upper secondary and higher education, a system of loans already existed since 1996. Amounts of up to 20,000 Bt are provided to students whose family income is less than 150,000 Bt, with a repayment period of two years after graduation and a 1% interest rate. The student loan fund has been increased by 80% with support from the Asian Development Bank; 675,000 loans were allocated in 1998. Here too, perspectives for 2000 and onwards look rather gloomy, as the government’s funding has been suspended and irregular repayments are insufficient to fund new loans.
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Previous evaluations Ziderman (1999) has evaluated the loans scheme for UNESCO and ADB. He concludes, in the first place, that 30% of the recipients would have dropped out in the absence of the loan. The number of beneficiaries has also far exceeded the initial target, although nearly two-thirds of all eligible students still were not reached by the system. At the same time, the scheme’s unexpected success has raised funding problems: a fixed budget, to be shared by a sharply increasing number of students, must result in lower per capita loans. Further, there is a need for harmonisation between the two ministries (Education and University Affairs) which have set different eligibility criteria and amounts in the past. The repayment conditions are considered ‘overly generous’. A second extensive evaluation of the ADB loan - including the grants scheme for primary and lower secondary education - is underway by NIDA.13 The loans and grants undoubtedly encouraged many youngsters to stay on at school and prevented them from migrating; in other cases they provided a relief of the financial burden on poor households. Yet, a number of critical issues also appeared from the (preliminary) findings: − as the selection of applicants was made by local schools, the selection criteria inevitably vary a great deal, so that the distributive effects can not be assessed. According to some sources, rural families and the unemployed were automatically supposed to live below the income threshold of the scholarship system; − the poorest families were unable to open a bank account for the payment of the grant or loan, because of debt problems; − the guidelines for implementation were very limited, which created confusion. Teachers also complained about lots of extra paperwork on top of their ordinary task; − information was far from perfect. Not only parents, but also school directors and government officials appeared not to know about the system; − the central administration was unable to treat applications on time. In Bangkok, the shortest delay between application and payment was 100 days; in the provinces, 300 days was not exceptional. It goes without saying that many students had already dropped out during the waiting period. It has therefore been suggested to delegate the administration of the scholarships entirely to schools, and even to transform the funds into flexible emergency funds to be spent by the schools rather than paid to the parents.
13 Interview with Dr. Vichit Lorchirachoonwul and Mr. Vicaai Rupkumdee.
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Although decentralisation is undoubtedly desirable, we think that extra funds to schools are no substitute for direct cash transfers to families. Free allocation by schools may also induce improper use of funds and perverse distributive effects. Echoes from the focus groups Curiously, discussions about financial aid were dominated by teachers, administrators and community leaders while parents and students did not comment on the schemes as such. One of the few comments from parents just illustrates their eagerness to obtain support for their children: “If the school can just tell me where I can get a scholarship, I will go everywhere, I’ m not afraid of trouble. That’s why I’m here today because I’m concerned of his future.” (a mother in Bangkok)
Generally speaking, schools appeared rather to worry about the possibility of misusing financial aid, while it may not reach the most needy. This also raised the issue of how much control the school should exercise in disbursing the money. “Financial aid is of course useful for the really poor. But I know of many cases of misuse of the loan in upper secondary school. The students withdraw money from the bank then go directly to the shopping mall, buy a 1,000 baht pair of shoes.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “Vocational students are eligible for 15,000 baht each (10-12,000 baht for secondary school students) so if two of them get together they will have enough to buy a motorcycle. Just go to any vocational school, anytime, you will see what I mean.” (an administrator in Sri Saket)
What is even more worrying is when the parents take the money from financial aid for their own use. “Most parents expect to get something out of their children’s fund. I have a student living with me because his house is far away. At the end of each month, the parents will make a visit for the money.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “When the parents have money in their hands, they can get greedy, they will not set it aside but will ‘borrow’ it for a while but most likely not pay back. You have to think if they are relying on daily wages and suddenly have control of a big sum, it’s natural they will use it, unless the school is really strict. It’s hard to blame them sometimes because it may not be for the parents’ personal use but for the family as a whole--a new mattress or something” (a community leader in Bangkok)
In fact, some of the above quotations suggest that aid can not be expected to be spent on school items when other basic needs are not covered. Others are more
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explicit in this respect. According to some respondents, the aid – particularly at the primary school level - is a drop in the ocean in terms of amounts as well as coverage. “Some of the scholarships may be insufficient, the child needs some money everyday. True, there are lots of financial aid but only for necessities. For example, a child gets 800 baht scholarship, he buys a pair of shoes, two sets of uniform, and it’s gone.” (an NGO worker in Bangkok) “The school can only bear part of the burden. Giving financial aid is not possible for all students. Their economic position is very close, so why do only some get it? We cannot do anything for their daily expenses.” (a school administrator in Sri Saket)
As regards the student loans at the level of secondary education, schools are more concerned about possible misuse, so they tend to interfere in the transfer of the loan. “I think the school should be responsible for managing the financial aid. But only provide it in kind, food, whatever, just do not give cash to the children or their parents. If you give it to the parents, they will use it first.” (a community leader in Sri Saket) “We hardly give cash to the children because sometimes it ends up with the parents. it happens everywhere. Schools that are strict will require students to withdraw cash via the class teachers, they have individual accounts.” (a school administrator in Bangkok)
Suggestions about controlling the use of loans by having teachers co-sign the withdrawal were offered but met with objections that it is ‘against the rule’. The bank has no objection to a student who is granted a loan open an account just in his name. The idea is that since the loan is for upper secondary students, they should be able to take the responsibility. Teachers seem reluctant to take on the extra duty of monitoring the use of the loan even if the rules allow their names to be added to the account. “We cannot control it, we are just following regulations. I heard of some schools that ask the students to withdraw through the teacher and that are accused of dishonesty.” (a secondary school teacher in Sri Saket) “It’s difficult to detect what happens, we have 2,500 students, 311 are taking out the loan.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
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“I guess we can have three names: the student, an advisor, and a school but I do not think it will help. If two out of three say it’s necessary to withdraw money for such and such, the third one has to go along.” (a secondary school teacher in Sri Saket)
Private scholarship funds Apart from the government, private non-governmental organisations such as the Duang Prateep Foundation (DPF), the Thai-German Development Foundation (TGF), the Foundation for Child Development, New Life, the Personal Development Centre etc., have launched their own grant or loan schemes. They prioritise children who do not benefit from state grants and develop their own rules. Proximity relationships with the families through home visits help a great deal in targeting the grants. Private as well as public enterprises also sponsor grants, usually through the mediation of schools. As a consequence, some school directors with good experience in fund raising can provide grants for all students in their school, while others even do not know about grants. Despite the careful targeting of private schemes, co-ordination between the latter and the government scheme is far from obvious. To begin with, private funds appear to be concentrated in urban areas. Bangkok students seem to have the best opportunities for financial aid. “Klong Toey is flooded with financial aid, some students have more than one loan. Some scholarship provides for equipment and clothes but the parents spend it on whisky. So when the school opens the children have no equipment - then they have to run to the loan shark.” (a community leader in Klong Toey) “Aid is easily duplicated because each donor is just interested in doing his own thing, and does not care what happens after the aid has been given out.” (a community leader in Klong Toey)
While some children receive double sources of funding, others do not get enough to cover the costs of going to school. Given these problems, we would advocate a gradual extension of the public grant and loan schemes so as to generalise the access to aid for all low-income students. NGOs and other private sponsors would probably be more than happy to use their funds for other educational projects. An alternative type of strategy to enhance the resources of poor households and/or schools is the development of income generating activities within schools. We will return to this issue in the next chapter.
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2.5 Educational priority areas Given the budget restrictions that prevent the government to provide genuinely free education for all, ‘educational priority areas’ can be a second-best solution. These areas can be defined on the basis of indices measuring the concentration of poverty, and are subject to a preferential subsidy regime. In Thailand, 6600 ‘extended opportunity schools’14 offering lower secondary education in rural areas provide financial assistance (from state and private funds) over and above the free tuition, free meals and text books. An estimated 600,000 children benefit from preferential treatment (Gill, 1999). A more systematic definition of educational priority areas may be worth examining.
3. Conclusion The extension of the right to basic education up to the end of upper secondary school has been accompanied by substantial efforts by the government to ensure free education. Admittedly, priorities had to be set - including selective provision of free books and uniforms in primary schools along with a general suppression of tuition fees. Yet, important problems appear to persist: − private schools partly elude government regulations; − transportation is no longer provided free of charge due to budget restrictions; − school uniforms still can constitute a tumbling stone for low-income families; − the provision of free lunch and milk has come under pressure. Given the obvious inability of the government to cover all costs for an ever increasing number of students, we would rather advocate the use of selective aid measures, through student grant or loan systems and/or through the identification of educational priority areas. The grant and loan schemes implemented with foreign aid have met with various criticisms about long and bureaucratic procedures, too small amounts (in primary education) and misuse of aid by parents or students (at secondary level). Despite these criticisms, recent evaluations have also shown that such aid mechanisms have had a favourable impact on dropout prevention. This suggests that the schemes should be improved rather than abolished. The advantages of more decentralised schemes should also be weighed against possible drawbacks in terms of reduced transparency and more arbitrary allocation by local authorities, schools or NGOs. Given the repayment problems involved by the loan system, grants may in some circumstances be considered a better alternative.
14 i.e. primary schools offering lower secondary education in the context of the Campaign for the expansion of opportunities in lower secondary education.
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CHAPTER 4 THE OPPORTUNITY COSTS OF EDUCATION
“For the past two years, I have been getting up at 1 am, going down to the market to carry things (fish, vegetables) down from the truck. I work until 5 am, get 50 baht, then work another shift from 6.30 to 8 am for 40 baht, then go home to change and come to school. I am always very tired. Sometimes I fall asleep in class, but the teacher understands. I have to miss school sometimes when my boss asks me to help put fertiliser in the field. I’m in Mathayom 3 now. I have always had to work even when I was with my parents in Nakon Sawan. My father works in the rice mill as a labourer. He was always drunk and hit me very often. My mother ran away after my father saw her with another man and hit her. I haven’t heard from her for 6 years. I was 8 years old when my grandfather brought me to Sri Saket. My father now works in Bangkok and comes home once in a while. The money I earn is for my grandparents, in case they become ill. From the 90 baht I earn, I keep 20 baht to come to school. I have a brother with me, he does not work, he is preparing to take exams to continue his study in town.” (A 16-year-old boy in Sri Saket)
1. Problems Apart from the direct costs (the expenses incurred for school material, transportation etc.(discussed in the previous chapter) education also involves a substantial indirect (or opportunity) cost. The opportunity cost is ‘the value of the alternative use of the resources deployed’. The resource which is being used here is the child’s time. Parents will prefer to send their child to school if they consider education to be the most meaningful investment. This is because if a child goes to school, other opportunities are missed. One significant opportunity cost is the time that a child is therefore not able to spend working. The following quotation illustrates how parents, teachers and even students bear this in mind continuously when reflecting on the alternatives: “Now if the parents keep insisting and tell us they would like to have their children for 1-2 weeks, it’s money making time, we will let them but this boy never said that, he came obediently. His grade is OK, and he is a good student, helping the teachers, he has good manners
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but he said he feels bad to see his mother working hard to feed the family and he wants his siblings to continue. Every time I talk to him, he says the same “ (a teacher)
There are various forms of child labour, ranging from household chores (caring for siblings, collecting wood and water, cooking, craft work etc.) to household production (caring for animals, sowing etc.) or paid work (day labour in the fields, selling goods in the streets, prostitution, working in factories etc.). The relationship between child labour and education is not, however, a simple one. Child labour may be the cause of a child not going to school, or it may be a consequence of school dropout. Child labour and school attendance can also be complementary. The main problem for some adolescents is perhaps not the fact that they are working, but the fact that they suddenly lose their jobs (White, 1999) and can therefore no longer afford to go to school. Others consider that unemployment discourages young people from leaving school and looking for a job. There may also be social differences here: young people whose families have sufficient resources presumably tend to stay on at school for longer in a context of high unemployment, while poorer youngsters leave education more quickly. 1.1 Child labour as a cause of school dropout Research has shown that whether or not children attend school is correlated with family income. Poverty is the most important reason for a child to go to work. Although children are poorly paid this extra wage can make a significant contribution to the family income. There are also some children who have to work in the home so that the adults can take a paid job. This opportunity cost has the greatest impact in poor families. Hence, schools tend to be rather lenient towards child labour and try to accommodate for it. “The class gets smaller as the students get older, from 70 in the Prathom 1-2 to just over 20 in prathom 5-6. The reason is these children are old enough to work. Parents who work in agriculture will see using their children as labourers to be more important than going to school. This is difficult to overcome since it involves their well being, they have to make use of child labour. Some children have parents 50-60 years old, all older siblings have married and moved out so the young kid has to help out.” (an administrator in Tak) “I went to him several times and he came back to school, without resisting. He just has no money. Each time he misses class, he hires himself out for tilling the field, for less than 100 baht a day, or maybe for nothing, just helping the neighbours.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “No parents ever insisted that they are too poor. This boy’s mother comes to help when we have activities at school. but he has a lot of responsibilities which sometimes the school can-
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not share. I accept that he has a need to earn money while in school although the money he earns is not enough for the whole family, so he has to work harder, and miss class, so I go to see him and talk to him. If he comes back, it’s not a problem to provide extra tutoring. We have such a programme. He only has Prathom 6 to finish. As for his family needing to eat, no scholarship extends beyond the student. If we cannot solve this problem, the boy will go back to work again, since he sees his mother and brother with their needs”. (a school administrator in Sri Saket)
We have seen cases where children as young as 13-14 had to take over responsibility from their parents. Some of them actually became the family’s main breadwinner: “The child had to choose between herself and the younger siblings who will go to school. There is a lot of people in this family, some work, some don’t, including the father. School is free, lunch is provided. But in reality they have to spend some money everyday. So I just suggested to stop for one year but in the end she could not stand seeing her mother work alone, so she decided to quit school to help her.” (a teacher in Bangkok) “My son dropped out of school in the middle of his Mathayom 2 because his father died and he was too upset to study, so he left school to work as a boxer. He has been doing that since he was 11 years old, going around the provincial boxing rings, once or twice a month. If he wins he gets about 3,000 baht and 1,000 baht if he loses. The boss gets something but not much. Since his father died, he either fights or works as a general labourer. He is 16 now. My younger son is in Mathayom and I think I will support him to stay in school, depending on how far he can go. He said he is the eldest son so he has to support the family” (a mother in Bangkok)
Parents rarely insist that the children leave school to help them; the children seem to decide on their own. And students confirm that it is their own choice to sacrifice their education for their family. The exact atmosphere at home that may influence the children’s decision of course cannot be determined from the discussion. “I quit at Mathayom 3, because I had to earn money by selling food at the evening market until very late. Sometimes I couldn’t get up in time so I did not go to school. I have a brother, the reason I quit is that he can study and to help my parents earn money. They both work but it’s not enough to pay off the family’s debt.” (a girl in Klong Toey) “My parents have Malaria and I have to take care of them as well as my little brother and also look after the farm” (a boy in Tak, Prathom 5) “I left school two years ago, half way through Mathayom 3, to work so that my younger siblings can go to school. I help my mother sell food, I have to be up at 2 a.m. and work until 8
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a.m. In the afternoon after washing the dishes we start over again for the evening. I want my brother to go way up. My father is a day-labourer but he does not get hired everyday. The main income is from me and my mother. I used to talk with the teacher about wanting to quit school, but when I actually did it, I did not tell her, I just left.” (a girl in Klong Toey)
In many cultures girls are more often engaged in household work than boys. Due to rigid cultural and social role-models, the opportunity cost for a girl may, therefore, be higher than for a boy. Although in Thailand gender inequality is very low compared to other countries, this certainly holds for the eldest daughter in a family, who traditionally has to care for the other children while the parents go out working. “My mother asked me to quit school when I was in Mathayom 2 to take care of younger siblings, she has to work and cannot be at home with them. I have to walk my little brother to school and pick him up everyday, I also went to all the parents’ meetings at the school on her behalf. She does not want to put him with the day-care. Since then she has one more child, 10 months old now. When she was pregnant I had to look after the two kids, and now she has another one. If I go to school, what about my younger siblings? They are going to grow up and the family will have more expenses whereas my father is the only one earning. So it’s better to have my siblings study first, I can continue later. The money I got from the foundation is not enough. I have to go for the nonformal because if the school has any activities I will have to attend. My mother also wants me to go to nonformal because she sees neighbour’s children go bad, get married even before they finish school. Mostly my mother would not let me go out so I would not have bad friends. With nonformal, I will have more time at home. My mother finished Prathom 3 and my father Prathom 4.” (A girl in Klong Toey) “The child has no expenses, the school provides everything, except extra expenses. The child has to choose, and she chooses to let her brother study.” (a teacher in Bangkok)
1.2 Child labour as a result of school dropout Characteristics of the school system itself may be a reason why children do not go to school. Parents consider what is most beneficial; to send their children to work or to send them to school. If the school is too expensive and/or is of low quality, this alternative becomes less attractive. In that case it seems more beneficial to them to allow their children to learn a trade (e.g. in agriculture) and contribute towards the family income. This issue will be developed further in chapter 5.
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1.3 Child labour as a facilitator of education Many children have to work in order to be able to go to school and cover the direct costs of education. A study in Bolivia, for example, found that children who did not work achieved the lowest performance at school. In Thailand, child labour before and after school hours seems to be generally tolerated: “We have a few students who do some odd jobs irregularly such as selling chicks in the evening in front of the school. This is for Prathom 4-5 students. For Mathayom 1-3, I know a few work as waiters in restaurants.” (a school director in Klong Toey)
What is more, parents in developing countries often assign different roles to their children. This phenomenon is called child specialisation, and it means that some children go to school while others have to work. The working children help to pay for their siblings’ education. (Watkins, 1999; Siddiqi, 1999; Chowdhury, 1994; Secretary of Labor, 1998; Baker, 1999; Global Aid Issue 2, 1996). “This boy had to quit to go to work, he feels himself not too good anyway, had to ask his younger brother for help with the homework. He is a highly responsible person. It’s poverty that forced him to do this. In his family there is just him, his mother, two younger siblings and an elderly aunt. He is the breadwinner.” (a teacher in Bangkok) “I left at Mathayom 1 to help my mother, my older siblings are married and do not live with us, I have three younger siblings. I go to work at the packaging firms for whisky. I am 15 years old. I got the job because my brother is a supervisor. I earn about 176 baht a day (minimum wage). Sometimes when I also clean the bottles), I get about 200 baht altogether. I do not work in the weekend but cannot go to school because I have to do housework too. I hope to have saved enough money to go to nonformal school next term.” (a girl in Klong Toey)
1.4 The general picture in Thailand Estimates of the proportion of children in work vary between 10 and 25% (Baker, 1999; Foundation for Child Development, 1996). Statistics are hard to collect, because of the illegal nature of child work. Even at the school leaving age (currently 15) permissions to work are not easily obtained, so that many young people are forced into the informal economy. Whereas stereotypes associate child labour in Thailand with exploitation in factories, or even sex work, over 80% of child workers are employed in agriculture, and most of these just work on their parents’ farm. The others work as day labourers in agriculture, in small factories (food, paper, plastics, textile, confection industries), shops or personal services, where abuses do occur.
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The Labor Force Survey shows that child labour (measured as the proportion of children aged 13-14 who are not attending school because they are either in the labour force or working at home)15 has been falling dramatically since 1988. The crisis has interrupted this trend with a temporary upsurge in 1996. This does not apply to 15-17 year olds, because the crisis resulted in growing unemployment among this group. Baker (1999) also points to a drastic change in the type of work carried out by children during the crisis. While children lost jobs in salaried work (in industry, construction and services except retail trade), unpaid child labour on family farms was growing. This may indicate that a growing number of rural families could no longer afford education. This trend has taken place in two stages. In 1997 more girls were affected than boys; three times more girls than boys left school or lost their paid jobs and went to do unpaid work. In 1998 it was mainly boys who went to work on the farm. Since 1999 the trend seems to have reversed again: aggregate child work statistics have dropped below the 1996 level, mainly due to a decrease in farm labour. The number of children holding jobs in industry has increased again. The quantitative and qualitative evolution both seem to point to a positive change. 1.5 Exploitation The main cause of concern is not the existence of child labour as such, but the working conditions of children (night work, too heavy work) and in some extreme cases, rightout exploitation. Many children in Bangkok work at night: children as young as 8-10 years old can be found in the vegetable market, all night food market, selling fried squid until 2 a.m. because the café closing time is around 2-3 am. When children’s homework does not get done, the teachers get the story. “The reason I quit school is because of work, I cannot go to school during the day even though I work at night. I have to prepare the food, finish after midnight, by the time I get home and go to bed it’s after 1 am. When I finish non formal I will work in Bangkok like my parents, just Mathayom 6 should be enough.” (a girl in Klong Toey) “What he is doing is literally illegal - carrying heavy stuff, more than 30 kilos - because under the labour law, children over 13 years can only perform ‘light’ work. But it’s an
15 This statistic dates from the period when the school leaving age was 12. After the extension of compulsory education until age 14, the series continued to be published. No other official data on child labour are available.
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agreement between the two parties. If you ask the children whether it is too heavy a load, they will say no. The children themselves offer their labour. This is a big problem, unsolvable. But I agree this is illegal and we have to help.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
Both boys and girls take jobs in the market at the early morning hours. Jobs for boys involve loading up and down the trucks and for girls involve weighing, packaging, measuring sugar, etc. Some children, particularly hill tribe girls, are an easy prey for child traffickers and pimps. The latter sometimes pass themselves off as teachers, promising the girls a school career, and even claim a ‘tuition fee’ before abducting them. It happens that parents sell their cattle in order to finance this fee. Others pose as government officials or employers. And then the girls end up in brothels in Chiang Mai. We have heard of extreme cases where village heads earn money by collaborating with traffickers. “One girl had been sold to a brothel at the age of six. We were able to return her to her parents 10 years later. She wanted to help her mother with the housekeeping, but died one year later of aids.” (An NGO worker in Chiang Mai)
Exploitation also takes the form of trafficking by commercial job placement services. Some agencies earn substantial amounts in this business: they lend money to the parents, which has to be repaid by the children by withholding their wages during the first months. The typical wage for day labour of children in 2000 is 100 Bt/day, although the legal minimum wage in Bangkok is 162 Bt (for a 48 hours job). Moreover working days are usually longer (9 to 12 hours) and labour protection is nil. In extreme cases, children are kept in detention or prevented from having contact with their family.
2. Remedies 2.1 Current practice All groups taking part in the focus group discussions accept the existence of child labour as a fact of life for poor families. Employers are considered as doing a good deed helping them and it is considered better for the children to keep their jobs, sometimes even at the expense of missing class. “He has to do this job regularly, he cannot choose to work only in the weekend, otherwise the employer will find someone else. The employer is in fact the chairman of our school commit-
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tee, he knows the boy’s family needs money and wants to help so he offers him that job. The school gives him financial aid but it is not enough - he got 2,500 from the crisis fund and 5,700 from the poverty fund”. (a school administrator in Sri Saket)
Some teachers feel helpless and, indeed, baffled when suddenly confronted with the living conditions of their pupils. “One of my students had been missing class for about a week, I was crossing the street on the flyover and saw one of the young beggars sitting on the concrete floor, she looked familiar but so dirty. I put the money in her bowl so she would look up and say thank you. Then from the look on her face I knew it was her. I cried and asked her to come back. She said she was sorry but her parents told her to do it. Many others are still out there selling garland until 3 a.m. And the parents think it has no effect on them coming to school in the morning.” (a teacher in Bangkok)
Others adopt firm positions, particularly towards work for primary school children: “I don’t think it’s right for the parents to take children out when they are still in Prathom 3-4 to help them work. I don’t care how poor they are, it’s no excuse. They are many ways out. We have to contact the school, tell them of our needs, so they can come and check, it’s the truth. Just think what the school will do, I don’t think they will ruin the child’s future. Everyone says the society has to help, so just tell them the truth.” (a 39-year-old women in Bangkok who takes care of a boy student in Mathayom 3)
It is obvious from the interviews that most teachers feel very committed to helping those students wherever they can, and find it hard to stand midway between their role as teachers and citizens: “We want to help the parents but the rule is against us. We have enough money to transfer to the students as a loan but the teachers do not want to take the risk. If we fail, it will be a black mark on our record as government official.” (a teacher in Tak)
Discussion therefore focused not on stopping the use of child labour but figuring out how to make it compatible with school attendance and with as little negative effects on the children as possible, particularly on their health. Child labour in a safe, stable environment, in a family where the parents seek to achieve a balance between work and education, indeed does not seem to harm the children (White, 1999). Particularly when children have to contribute to family earnings, the school tries to help by allowing them to remain in school and to work in the evening. In Klong Toey, a school has contacted restaurants to help students find jobs as waiters.
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Some of those have now completed school. After they finish Mathayom 3, the school will contact a technical school which accepts a quota of 8 students a year. The students can choose to study in the morning or afternoon and the school will put them to work at Lotus department store. NGOs also support this approach, to help children take care of their family without having to dropout. So they have suggested schools to find evening jobs for the students or during the school breaks. 2.2 Options for the future One set of policy options to reduce the opportunity costs of education within a setting of full-time education include: adapting the school calendar to the seasonal demand for child labour; extending the provision of child care for younger siblings during school hours (this also prepares the younger siblings for education); promoting labour-saving utilities such as mains water, electricity, public transport … (Chowdhury, 1994); and adjusting school hours or providing flexible catch-up courses to take account of the fact that some children have to take responsibility for household tasks (Fiske, 1998). “What the school can do for children who have to help their parents at work is encouraging them to come back and when they do, we will put them to intensive courses for one month then take the exams but that can only be done up to Prathom 6. For a lot of students, that is not possible.” (a teacher in Tak)
Financial aid to students, already discussed in the previous chapter, is another straightforward way to reduce the indirect cost of schooling and make it more attractive. A cheaper alternative, and perhaps the most straightforward one, would be to provide part-time education at lower secondary level. Currently NGOs working with school dropouts often channel these youngsters to non-formal education, but at present, this is not accessible to young students (in age group 12-15), not intensive enough and sometimes of doubtful quality. Part-time education can be achieved as a stream within formal education: it can to some extent adopt the mainstream curriculum, while relieving the opportunity cost of education. It is also known to have pedagogical advantages: alternating school and work proves to boost learning because problems encountered at work can be solved at school and, vice versa, knowledge acquired at school is reinforced by its application in a working environment. Of course, the success of ‘alternating education’ is conditional on a good matching of school curricula and learning contents with the living and working environment of the students.
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In the next subsection, we will discuss one variant of this approach, which might fit well into the context of Thai education: the further development of income generating projects within schools. 2.3 Income generating projects Approximately 300 schools in rural areas in Thailand have joined the ‘King’s Proj??ect’ which aims at supporting the self-reliance of poor families or communities in rural areas. The Department of General Education provides about 200,000 Bt per school as seed money. In some cases the funds are raised from sponsoring. The resources are allocated to the development of fishing pools, cattle growing proj??ects, agricultural activities. Schools mainly use these projects to supplement their free lunch programme. Some schools succeed in selling part of the yield on local markets and using the return to cover other expenses. Other schools develop handicrafts such as weaving or jewellery, with mixed results. Still others organise ‘work experience periods’ for the students with local employers. At present, these income generating projects are not generally considered very successful. Various obstacles were mentioned during the focus group interviews, in the first place obstacles of an economic nature: their limited economic viability, competition on local markets and lack of know-how. “We do have income generating projects, but they are not substantial. Almost all of them are making a loss. The only reason they still exist is because we sell to the lunch programme. Income from raising chicken is about 200-300 per lot, many students are taking part so there is no way we can share any profit with the students’ families.” (a school administrator in Sri Saket) “This type of programme can help the students themselves a little, but definitely not in a sustainable way.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “For a project to help students earn income such as growing vegetables or raising animals, there are limitations because growers cannot control the price, it depends on the market. The effort spent is not worth the output. I think it is hard to make a success out of this project.” (an administrator in Tak) “We did sell them for cash and share with students - very rarely, though, and we can not think of ever doing that as a main income source. Right now we have 7-8 students working on the project which yields about 4,000 baht a month. After deducting the cost of 3,000 baht, there’s hardly anything left for them. The villagers grow the same thing and sell in the same market where we cannot compete, and then there are transportation costs.” (a teacher in Tak)
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“I agree that this is a good idea but in practice there are a number of constraints such as lack of expertise, when we run into difficulties, we cannot solve them.” (a teacher in Tak)
Even the community leaders are not too keen on the idea or the suggestion that the villagers could lend their expertise to the project. In order to avoid competition with the villagers, it seems preferable to produce non-farm products, such as handicraft or souvenirs but again, that is the kind of activities where women’s groups have a big advantage. Bangkok schools do not have the land for agricultural projects and only have a few things students make during their art class such as flowers, garments for sale during the school exhibition. Schools in the outlying areas may grow some vegetables but strictly for lunch, not for the market. An additional problem is the co-operation from the students who naturally would rather play with their friends than work on the farm project. They feel ashamed for having to work in front of their friends and it might even discourage them from coming to school at all. Also, if they sacrifice playtime for work, they expect to be rewarded right away, instead of waiting until the end of the week or month. “The big problem is the nature of the kids who want to play, especially those under 13 years. When we need a group of students to do the job, instead of them coming regularly to school, they just stay away because they feel awkward and embarrassed to be different from others. The rest play while they have to work. This is not so much the case for lower secondary students who have more responsibility but for the primary it’s a psychological issue, against the children’s nature” (a teacher in Tak) “Most importantly, we must not forget that the kids who work will expect some cash in return, to encourage them to continue, 1-2 baht will make them happy, they can put the money in the saving co-op. But if we keep the money until the end of the year or the term, they will be discouraged.” (a teacher in Tak) “The idea is for the poor children to work and stay in school, to earn income to take some load off their parents, and also for them to have some training for future work. But what happens is we have students who are good in school and from well-off parents, such as shop owners in the municipal areas, whereas poor children have no interest in the programme. Could it be that they feel the programme is too degrading for them?” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
In sum, the rationale of the income generating projects is definitely innovative and promising. At this stage the projects already provide quite some output to the school lunch programme, but there is a great need for coaching and (economic)
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expertise so as to upgrade the projects, to make them viable and attractive for the students.
3. Conclusion The ambition to raise the educational level of the Thai younger generation up to upper secondary level is praiseworthy. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that this involves very high opportunity costs that weigh heavily on low-income families in terms of the children’s foregone earnings (or work at home). Even though the investment in education yields returns in the longer run, its burden in the short run is a major cause of dropout and should be limited as far as possible for those groups. Apart from student grants and loans (discussed in the previous chapter) solutions can for example include flexible timetables to allow for work before/after school hours or in the high season. Schools, local authorities and NGOs seem to adopt very understanding attitudes towards youth labour beyond school hours. A more far-reaching solution would consist of part-time formal education curricula at lower and upper secondary level, allowing for combinations with part-time work. Indeed, the optimal balance seems to be a situation where poor children no longer have to choose between work and education, but where (part-time) work enables them to finance their education. A model combining the concepts of the King’s Project with alternating education may be worth considering from this perspective. The income generating proj??ects, duly coached by professionals, could provide part-time employment to students in the proximity of the school and in alternation with formal education. It needs no saying that tolerance towards child work has its limits. All forms of exploitation (by commercial placement offices, or through excessively heavy work, or in the sex industry etc.) need to be firmly combated.
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CHAPTER 5 THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF EDUCATION
“Parents have no confidence in the education system. They see that the children gain nothing from studying. The proposed change to 9 or 12 years will make it even worse, they just come out to ‘kick the dirt’ (remain unemployed). We have to admit that our system educates (people to become chao-nai (to have a superiority complex). The higher they go, the further they are from reality. I think they are mistaken not to recognise the value of education. But we should try to see it from their angle too. How do we organise education to suit their lives? These days we see a curriculum as a sardine, all packed ready to eat, we just tell the students ‘this is what you need to learn’, with no choice of subjects. Does it have benefits at all? Probably some, but it just does not match with the people’s lifestyle. We are not giving up, but it’s an ongoing problem between the practitioners and the policy makers. Policy makers need to understand the villagers’ ways of life. We need to have them think, to realise the significance of education. First and foremost it is the school that has to find a strategy to make them recognise its value, and most of all we need a proper policy from above. We must not see all primary schools as being the same without digging deeper into the real needs of each locality. The policies given to us are very broad, and when we do not follow them strictly we will get into trouble.” (A teacher in Sri Saket)
The three previous chapters dealt with the role of home resources, direct and indirect costs of education in explaining school dropout. Let us now concentrate on the (expected) benefits of education. The school will be attractive to students - and thus prevent dropout to the extent that (a) it responds to their immediate needs and aspirations by offering services of sufficient quality, and (b) it provides an education that improves their later well-being. In this chapter we will first analyse the problems relating to the schools’ own resources (section 1) and quality (section 2) and then the return to education as perceived by different groups (section 3).
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1. Resources 1.1 Problems Infrastructure and equipment The unattractiveness of education can sometimes be due to material aspects of the school environment which are of inferior quality (Watkins, 1999) such as the infrastructure and hygiene in school buildings, the condition of classrooms, the furniture and the availability and quality of teaching materials and school equipment. Many primary schools in rural areas are extremely sober; secondary schools are much better off, though directors also complain about a lack of equipment. When material conditions are inadequate, this will inevitably have an impact on the students’ learning process. “Our school has no electricity, despite being here in Tak. This is a big disadvantage for our teachers to study and improve themselves at night. To attract students we need to have technology…so a number of students move to “suksa songkroh” because parents think we do not have the right equipment for their children, other schools have computers, sound labs, etc.” (a school principal in Tak) “This boy in Prathom 4 missed school because he could not play sports. When we started having them, he came back.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
Transportation The physical accessibility of schools is a problem in many countries. Although we have already dealt with the issue of transportation costs in chapter 2, it deserves special attention here too, because it involves more problems than the mere costs. Children sometimes do not go to school because there are no educational facilities within a reasonable distance (Chowdhury, 1994 & Watkins, 1999). The number of girls who go to school is known to be negatively correlated to the distance between home and school. Students often have to cover these distances on foot and this leads to long walks with inherent dangers (rainy seasons, wild animals, exhaustion, assaults etc.). Many village roads are impassable in the rainy season. These problems do apply to rural Thailand as well. Although primary schools are available in almost every village, some remote villages remain poorly served. For example, some villages in hill areas of North Thailand are hardly accessible by car in the rainy season so that teachers do not show up for a whole period. Inspection is insufficient and village inhabitants dare not complain with the government for fear of being expelled. As regards lower secondary education, despite consider-
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able investments in ‘extension schools’ (primary schools offering lower secondary education), children in some remote areas are supposed to travel more than 15 km. through the mountains. The MOE does not organise transport services: transportation is being provided either by tambons or by the private sector. It is difficult to find owners of pick up buses to go over the hills since maintenance costs can be very high, not to mention the time spent travelling back and forth. The use of trucks instead of buses implies safety problems. Walking to school can not only be physically demanding for the children, it also takes a lot of their time which would otherwise be available for homework, leisure or helping their parents. Spending 2-3 hours each day on the road can play a big role in discouraging students from attending school. “Another problem is with parents who are unhappy that the children have less time to work for them before and after school, and so may pull them out of school altogether. It’s because we have to make several pick up stops, so the first group have to leave home very early and arrive home late - too late to help their parents around the house” (an administrator in Tak) “It’s about five kilometres from the village to the school, a short cut has to pass through a cornfield but when the corn is fully grown, owners will not allow the children to pass through. So they stay at home.” (a teacher in Tak)
Problems have exacerbated since the crisis in two ways: on the one hand, fares have risen dramatically since 1997; on the other, a number of small schools have been closed due to rationalisation measures, so that travel distances have increased in some areas. Personnel problems In developing countries there is often a shortage of teachers, particularly in rural areas. Teachers may get demotivated and many are often absent. The causes for this are low pay, poor working conditions, inadequate career opportunities and poor support services. If pay is low, teachers tend to increase their income through other jobs, and this increases absenteeism. Motivation is further reduced because the rewards and career opportunities available are not related to their performance (Chowdhury, 1994). In rural areas all these school-related factors are usually even less satisfactory. During the ‘Expansion of opportunity campaign’ Thailand has certainly had to struggle with a serious shortage of (suitably trained) teachers (Chinnapat Bhumirat et al., 1995). At present there is rather an excess supply of primary school teachers due to the demographic downturn; these teachers have been partly
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retrained for lower secondary and partly for pre-primary education. Again, the overall picture hides huge regional disparities: whereas the average number of pupils per classroom (primary and secondary level) in the North is 25, it is 51.7 in Pattani in the South (Chuachan Chongsatityoo, 1999). The pay of school teachers in Thailand is very low (the starting wage is 6,000 Bt per month). Pre-school teachers earn no more than 2-3,000 Bt/month. In the long run, this may undermine the quality of education. During the focus group discussions, teachers complained most about their heavy work load, which prevents them from offering due attention and support to their students. Monitoring children at risk of dropping out requires devotion, sensitivity, and imagination. If they are in class with an understanding teacher, who knows how to organise the class, then there is a chance to keep them. But particularly in primary education, the number of teachers is often limited. In some schools one teacher has to cater for two classes. A temperamental teacher will drive the students away. “Therefore, the school has to be really gentle, try to know the real problems, what is required to attract them to school again. Get to the heart of the problem, go to the parents at their homes. Maybe we will use the relaxed approach, let the students take their time, no rush, no worry about exams and grades. Let them go through the learning process, all the educational process. So that when they finish school, they can survive happily in society. Let us not be concerned with quality, with exams all that much. So I tell you school is the most important in solving children’s family problems, we have to do it seriously and with sympathy for the children.” (an education official in Tak)
The problem that is bothering most teachers right now is that there is not just teaching load but too many ‘extra’ tasks - so many that they do not have sufficient time to respond to students’ needs and problems. If possible, they would rather concentrate on teaching and have someone else take a considerable amount of time and even financial resources. For instance, keeping a record of attendance is relatively simple, but following up on that by making home visits can prove too much of a burden. What is even more important is that it takes away the time that they should be spending with other students at school. For rural, primary schools, it may not take much time since the students live in the school’s vicinity but it is less feasible for secondary schools with students coming from further away. Therefore, parents have to take more responsibility and be more supportive of the school’s effort. “Our school has more than 2000 students, from a wide variety of backgrounds, you cannot say we don’t follow up. Parents’ occupation involves a lot of travelling (such as for gem
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traders) and they do not realise that children who left home in school uniform each morning may end up somewhere else. Our teachers have very little spare time from teaching. They have 20-25 periods per week, it is difficult to find time to go after the students. We just know they are missing from the daily roll calls but some teachers just make a record but do not make a tally until the end of the term when they finally notice that some students only showed up 4-5 days.” (a female secondary school teacher in Tak) “It seems unfair towards the rest of the class if the teachers have to be away tracking down the small proportion who are not interested in attending classes in the first place.” (a teacher in Klong Toey)
Shortage of teachers can mean truants have more opportunities to be away from school without parents knowing it. They would arrive in the morning and try to sneak away later. “Our teachers need to have four hands to do all our work, with 10 teachers and almost 400-students, compared to the normal ratio where we should have 20. Some classes have as many as 60-70 students.” (a school administrator in Tak) “The younger kids like to follow the older ones … they arrive at the school but very few teachers monitor them, one teacher often has to look after two classes. So they can sneak out after the roll call when the teacher left the room for a while. Please make a fence around the school so we can keep the little ones inside.” (a community leader in Tak) “Shortage of teachers is a main factor for dropping out. In this district we have more than 100 teachers resigning. And now we lose about 200 a year through the early retirement programme and we cannot find a replacement. Teachers’ welfare is a problem. When the more senior get a transfer to a better location, they put new teachers in the remote area - for something like a trial period which they just have to accept. So parents here meet new teachers every year.” (a teacher in Tak)
Teachers’ workload can put quite a pressure on them. Many have debts which could cause them to run around trying to make end meets and neglect their teaching, driving taxis for example. “Working in a primary level we get less credit than we deserve, this is the first and most important step for the kids but our salary is so small. We have to use our brain, to write, but you cannot find enough time if you work with young kids. Teachers at higher levels have more time for research to upgrade themselves. Not just that we have no compensation, we can accept that, but often we have to help the students out of our own pocket. In the evening when their parents show up late to pick them up, what do you do if they come to you and say they are hungry?
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Teaching is a never-ending profession. We have to play every role they ask of us: sing, dance, whether or not you have done it before. I did no major or minor in English but I’m teaching it from Prathom 1 to 6, I prepare sheets, do the account, manage the lunch programme, the milk programme, the scholarships, I organise camping, the boy scouts, sports, I even drive.” (an administrator in Bangkok)
1.2 Remedies A sharp policy dilemma can be observed in Thailand between the quantity and quality of education. The expenditures per pupil must be monitored carefully so as to maintain the quality of education while expanding it. Some studies have shown that an expansion from 25 up to 40 pupils per class has little effect on teaching results. These findings have informed the current policy of the Thai government to increase pupil/teacher ratios. However, this has occurred very unequally across the country with some schools now having an average class size of more than 50 students. On the whole, a more equal distribution of personnel across regions and schools is a first priority; in the longer term, the pupil/teacher ratios should probably increase again, or other types of personnel would need to be allocated to the schools (such as psychologists or social workers). The lack of a nearby school can be dealt with by providing transport to school and deploying mobile teachers who travel around to reach pupils in outlying areas. As mentioned earlier, in some districts bicycle projects have been subsidised by the Department of General Education. The bikes are lent to students. Where schools are located more than 10 km from the students’ homes, boarding can be offered; however, the costs involved constitute a barrier. Only the 36 ‘welfare schools’ for children from severely disadvantaged backgrounds offer free tuition, boarding, textbooks etc. Incentives can be provided to encourage teachers (mainly female teachers) to teach lessons in outlying areas such as lodging facilities, training or additional remuneration (Chowdhury, 1994). In the recent past, emergency funding has increasingly been obtained from local authorities and private for-profit and non-profit sponsors - probably as a substitute for government funding, such as in the case of the suppressed school bus subsidy. “The Tambon Administration helped build a fence which we funded through a ‘kantoke dinner’. But this school bus is a very recent issue which I have just learned. As a chair of the TAO, I promise to find some funding but I need to have it back later otherwise it will create
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trouble for TAO since we have not really been given responsibility to look after the school. I agree that we must help and will do it to the best of our ability.” (a community leader in Tak) “If we find out parents in this community cannot afford to send their children anymore we will ask the school if they have any scholarship, if not, we will try to find it, whatever we can. We organise quite a few charity events, get some sponsors, sometimes over a million baht, from the market, the merchants. The money is given to the school to do what it likes, so I do not know how many children we have helped each year.” (a community leader in Bangkok)
2. The quality of education 2.1 Problems There is some concern about the quality of education in Thailand, particularly as regards science, mathematics and foreign languages. Teaching methods are said to go little further than lecturing and rote learning. Pupils are seen as passive organisms who have to be ‘filled’ with knowledge. The problem of teaching quality is related to the fact that part of the teachers currently do not have the appropriate certificates: according to unpublished statistics from the Office of the Permanent Secretary for Education, 5-8% of all teachers currently do not have certificates corresponding to the national standard (BA or more).16 Another aspect of the problem is allegedly the modest quality of the Rajabhat institutes for teacher training. “I think students today, we only have quantity, hardly any quality and the personnel is also lacking. At my school, they let the students correct each other’s homework and the teachers just explain, nobody knows if it’s correct or not. Personnel is the most important factor. But when we discuss it they say there is no budget so how are we going to get quality?” (a community leader in Tak)
The quality standards of education appear to be rather unequal. Educational provision is scattered among many different authorities including 4 ministries (education, university affairs, interior and the prime minister’s office). Together with the growing involvement of the private sector and the absence of national evaluation standards, this explains why the quality appears to be so unequal across regions and providers.
16 This is a substantial improvement compared with the previous Education For All assessment in the beginning of the 1990s, when the proportion of underqualified teachers was 16.1%
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If the schooling on offer is of inferior quality, this can lead to school wastage (Watkins, 1999). The term school wastage refers to any form of wastage of school time. There are three forms of school wastage. − First of all there is grade repetition. Although on average the repetition rate is quite modest in Thailand (3%), individual students can accumulate enormous arrears: we have seen cases of students aged 9 in grade one, 17 in grade 6…17 Students then receive education which was in principle intended for other pupils. This also increases the direct and indirect cost of education. − Secondly, a poorly performing pupil gets discouraged and is more inclined to leave the school than a pupil who is making good progress. This leads to dropouts who leave the school before they reach a level of sustainable literacy and numeracy. Research has shown that these dropouts often remain trapped in illiteracy. − There are also some pupils who go through the whole primary education system without learning the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic (Fiske, 1998 and Fiske, 1999). It must be said that some schools in Thailand make considerable efforts to provide (even free) remedial classes, although this becomes more difficult with shrinking numbers of teachers. 2.2
Remedies
Successful anti-wastage programmes assume that pupils who receive high-quality education will not only learn more, but will also be more motivated to come to school. It is not enough simply to expand the supply of education; the quality of education must also be improved. Teacher upgrading Many studies have shown that skilled teaching has a significant positive impact on pupils’ learning performance. To improve their teaching, teachers not only need to learn new pedagogical techniques, but they also need to gain insight into the way in which pupils learn. Often they do not have a professional context in which they could exchange experiences with their colleagues and learn from each other (Chowdhury, 1994 & Fiske, 1998). The Thai government is currently promoting research and training into ‘student-centred teaching’ as a way to develop higher-order abilities such as independent thinking and problem-solving among students. Investment into modern equipment and in-service training is also prioritised. Special emphasis is put on science, mathematics and English. A competitive system of awards for ‘national 17 Admittedly, some children also enter education at later ages.
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teachers’ and ‘master teachers’ has been established, where the awarded teachers are called upon to disseminate their techniques. Establishing national quality standards National standards have been developed for basic education, and a bill is currently being prepared for the establishment of an Office for National Educational Standards and Quality Assurance. This office will be entrusted with the development and supervision of an external evaluation system. The proposed standards cover students’ performance, inputs, and the education process itself. Financial bottlenecks All good intentions mentioned above must be applauded, but their ultimate impact will depend on the resources available to fund improvements. As mentioned earlier, the spectacular expansion of education in the recent past and the ambition to raise the school-leaving age from 13 to 18 have raised a quantity-quality dilemma. Staff from local schools have questioned the feasibility of studentcentred teaching in a context of decreasing teacher-pupil ratios, as well as the upgrading of the teaching profession with starting salaries of 6,000 Bt/month. For a sustainable, long-term quality improvement, substantial financial commitments are unavoidable.
3. The expected returns to education 3.1 Problems Another possible cause of school dropout is the deficiency in the link between (secondary) education and the needs of the local labour market. If young people from agricultural areas have to go through a curriculum which is too academically oriented, they become alienated from their surroundings. “We have to admit that in the rural setting, primary school graduates can do a lot of things, while secondary school graduates tend to look down on the traditional occupations of their families. University graduates are worst of all, they are only interested in making money, never want to come back to the farm, maybe they are too ashamed to do so. So if the more educated children cannot work alongside parents in the field, it is understandable that some parents lack the trust in education.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
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“Parents with agricultural occupations see that their neighbours’ children with Mathayom 3 education do not provide any help, so why should they encourage their own to continue, just the compulsory level is more than enough.” (a community leader in Tak) “I see children in my village who have more education and cannot - or do not want to - help their parents work. My own children are like that too. I tell them to help out in the field, they say no, they’re too lazy.” (a community leader in Sri Saket) “Let’s consider it, isn’t it true that we are now preparing children for the industrial society, for the urban labour market, and not for agriculture? If the children finish Mathayom 3, Mathayom 6, do they return to the fields? No, they become the resources for industry. I used to visit a Japanese factory, children from the Northeast are the employer’s favourite. We teach them for nine, twelve years and they become workers in that Japanese factory, standing all day long. What we actually need is the Thai way of life, self-sufficiency, helping each other in the agricultural society. But the labour market is not like that.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
In many cases the more educated youngsters will indeed move to urban centres. Interviews in rural areas suggest that education beyond primary school is only perceived as meaningful for employment in urban centres (shops, restaurants etc.). Those who fail in the city return to their village and discourage their peers from further education, while successful graduates will stay in the cities and remain ‘hidden’ as possible models. Others will give up going to school because it has no relevance to subsequent prospects in the agricultural labour market. “I will help my mother working in the cornfield until I get married. Because even if I finish school, there is no job for me, no money.” (a 15 year-old-girl in Tak)
Some parents may also feel that their investment in their children’s education will be worthless if the labour market for ‘good’ jobs discriminates against people from poor families with no connections. “There are still those who lack confidence in the system. They want to support their children’s education but cannot see them getting jobs in firms, the government, they think ‘Poor farmers like us are nobody, to get a job our children have to compete, to know people who can help’ So they become discouraged.” (a community leader in Sri Saket)
Some interviewees also complained about the low quality of other vocational courses in upper secondary school (sciences, languages) and the poor curriculum of engineering and teacher training in higher education. According to them, manpower planning would indeed be underdeveloped in the Thai educational policy.
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3.2 Remedies Education in general, and secondary education in particular, should be made more attractive for farmers. Admittedly, many rural schools run agricultural projects (partly to provide for the free lunch programme, partly for educational reasons) and some would even devote part of the optional teaching periods to subjects related with agriculture. In some regions, ‘wise men’ from the village teach the children practical skills (growing pigs, saving, trading etc.) as a way to make education more directly relevant. Although these wise men have no teacher diploma, some of them have been accredited as teachers. They are supported by a community development network called the Village Foundation. An agricultural option also exists in vocational education at upper secondary level; however, no more than 10,500 students (0.6% all enrolees in upper secondary education) follow this option under the MOE’s authority. Although these figures do not include agricultural education provided by other authorities, even a doubling would still mean a dramatic imbalance in relation to the importance of agriculture in the national economy. A better developed agricultural education, also at lower secondary level, would undoubtedly make school more attractive in rural areas.
4. Conclusion Maybe the quantitative expansion of basic education has caused more pressure on its quality than the economic crisis of the late 1990s. Resources seem to be inadequate for infrastructure (particularly at the pre-primary and primary level), for transport services, for personnel and salaries. Fund raising from local authorities and private industry can at best ease the problems. An increase in subsidies from the central government is required, together with a redistribution between regions and schools. As regards the quality of teachers, the ongoing efforts to improve teachers’ skills and the introduction of national standards can be considered hopeful evolutions. Investments in in-service training will need to be raised further. Another aspect of the school’s attractiveness relates to the matching between educational contents and the needs of the labour market. The most crucial strategy to be pursued here would be the expansion and upgrading of agricultural education, starting from the lower secondary level. Equal opportunity policies for graduates from socio-economic minorities have also been claimed for.
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CHAPTER 6 SOCIAL OBSTACLES
“My grandmother died last week at 72. She raised me from the money she earned with the 3 rais rice field. Sometimes when there is no motorcycle that I can ride with a friend, I just walk to school about one hour. Most of my friends have one since Mathayom 1. I’m afraid to stay alone in the house and went to stay with ‘auntie’ since that first night. My grandmother told me to do so. There is another aunt but she has three children of her own. I don’t know how long I can stay there. She has two children still in school too so … My parents are both alive, I have never seen my father but they are in Bangkok and mother just told me they will not come anymore. She is not interested at all how I am going to live. No letter, no money ever sent. I do not know if they love me or not. She gives me something each day, not always. But I will take whatever she has. When I was with my grandma she gave me 5 baht a day. On the days I do not have money I just stay in the classroom during lunchtime, with other friends. I want to be a teacher, what I need from the school most now is lunch money. I still want to stay with this auntie.” (a 16-year-old girl in Sri Saket, Mathayom 4)
In the four previous chapters, we treated the decision to stay on or drop out as a rational choice of individuals, based on their resources as well as the costs and expected benefits of education. Although this approach explains much of the young people’s behaviour, one must admit that other social factors affect the decision too. The example above does not encompass all types of social problems discussed in the present chapter, but it is illustrative of the way in which many Thai children have to survive, faced with diseases, drugs, family disruption, often fending for themselves and torn between a traditional rural culture and the temptations of urban life.
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1. Health 1.1 Problems Nutritional status is an important factor in determining one’s learning capacity. Although the situation in Thailand is better than in many other developing countries, many children still suffer from vitamin or protein malnutrition, particularly in the North and the Northeast. This may involve protein, iron, iodine and/or vitamin A deficiencies; or parasite infections linked to unclean water and inadequate sanitation. Sullivan (1998) even points to a deterioration of the nutritional situation since the crisis. Chronic malnutrition hinders balanced development, causes defects in brain development and influences cognitive processes such as attention and concentration. These children are weak and susceptible to all kinds of diseases. The diseases which occur most frequently are diarrhoea, malaria18 and respiratory infections. “The entire area on the western border of Tak is infested with malaria, all the schools have ‘hardship allowance’ which proves how bad the problems are. These diseases cause the students to be weak, become sick very often, and miss classes.” (a teacher in Tak)
No matter how high the quality of education is, malnourished or sick children cannot benefit from it. What is more, diseases may have a double, direct and indirect effect on school-going behaviour because children, especially girls, are kept home from school to care for sick siblings, or because the cost of treating health problems can be so high that no money is left for education (Watkins, 1999; Chowdhury, 1994; World Bank, 1999; Von Braun, 1996). “My parents have Malaria and I have to take care of them as well as my little brother and also look after the farm” (a boy in Tak, Prathom 5)
1.2 Remedies Measures to universalise education cannot be seen in isolation from strategies to improve public health and fight poverty. Moreover, schools can also organise school feeding programmes in which nutritious meals are given to the pupils. These meals can be combined with nutrition education and school gardening. The Food for Education Programme in Bangladesh has shown that these programmes can
18 Malaria has been signalled in particular along the Cambodian border and in the province of Tak, near the Burmese border – particularly in the refugee camps.
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help promote school attendance.19 It is also very important to promote healthy lifestyles through education. Nutritional programmes As noted earlier, the Thai government have introduced a free lunch programme in primary (and extension) schools, covering 30% of the pupils in principle. Estimates of the real coverage ratio vary widely: on one hand, the number of eligible children has supposedly risen since the crisis; on the other, economies and discontinuities in the funding have reduced the ability of schools to provide free meals. Many schools ask the children to bring rice from home while producing their own vegetables. In any event, observers consider the free lunch programme as a crucial component of the campaign for universal basic education. Hence, it should probably be generalised to primary education as a whole, and more funding per student will be required in order to improve the quality of the meals. The approach of the Foundation for Child Development deserves a special mention here. The schools supported by the foundation not only provide free meals, but local communities are also involved in helping the schools becoming self-sufficient. At the same time, teachers and parents receive special training with regard to nutrition. Free milk is provided to primary and pre-primary schools. Many complaints have been registered about deliveries of rotten milk due to the poor organisation of its distribution by the central government. The call for decentralisation here is very strong: the provinces are expected to be able to organise the distribution much more efficiently. Corruption and abuses in delivery contracts would allegedly be less frequent. In the mean time, schools have also been forced to reduce their milk consumption: in some cases children are served in rotation, or the milk provision is restricted to children with underweight. Health care A genuine medical support programme in education is non-existent in Thailand. There is a medical insurance for school children, and conventions with local hospitals do exist in some regions, but with unequal success. It seems that no systematic preventive health care is being provided. It would be useful to develop a medical inspection programme aimed at a systematic screening of school children’s health and the provision of basic care such as inoculations.
19 Food For Education Programme; http://www2.unesco.org/efa/wef/countryreports/bangladesh/rapport_2_1.html
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2. Handicapped children 2.1 Problems If there is a shortage of resources for ordinary education, this is even more true of special education. Children with a handicap often simply cannot go to school because there are no schools in the surroundings which are equipped to cope with their handicap. In Thailand, a recent survey conducted by ONPEC concluded that more than 600,000 disabled children (or about nine in every ten) still had no access to (public) education (ONEC, 1999). 2.2 Remedies At present efforts are made to develop ‘inclusive education’, which in practice means that mainstream schools try to integrate handicapped children. It must be admitted, however, that this is demanding for the schools while it may not be the adequate solution for severely handicapped or mentally retarded children.20 For example, Sri Saket is currently trying to conduct a survey of disabled children in order to arrange for their schooling. The education centre for the disabled should be ready in 2001, which should make it possible to provide separate treatment according to the type of impairment, but in the mean time regular schools are expected to take care of all disabled children. “At my school we have about 15 such cases. The first thing we need to do is create normalcy, absolutely no teasing. The teacher has to sympathise and help.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “I think ONPEC’s policy to have them in the same class will create many problems in practice, it will be a lot of burden for us. It’s not possible to conform because the teachers cannot distinguish which type of disabled children have what kind of special need because we have no training in this matter. We certainly can’t teach blind students, we have no equipment, no capability. The same applies to deaf students. We have to provide special education for them separately. Not only do we have a shortage of teachers but their teaching load is heavy too.” (a school administrator in Sri Saket)
Apart from the issue of ‘burden’, teachers also express the need for professional support:
20 We met a case where a mentally retarded child dropped out after having repeated the first grade five times.
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“The teachers cannot distinguish the special needs of each disabled student because they have no such training. Currently the disabled have a strong tendency to drop out. I have a case with one mentally disabled girl, she tries to behave the same way as others but cannot control herself, such as saliva dripping out, she feels embarrassed. She doesn’t want to see anyone, avoiding the teachers when we visit her. I suggest there should be an expert from the province to orient disabled children according to their particular needs. If you leave it to the school, we will just do it according to our perception. The selection has to be done before they come to school, not afterwards.” (a male primary school teacher in Sri Saket)
Some charitable organisations try to fill this gap. The Duang Prateep Foundation, for example, has experience with children with hearing difficulties in the slums of Bangkok. The few special schools in this area in Thailand are both physically and financially inaccessible to these children.
3. Drugs 3.1 Problems Drugs have become a real scourge in recent years, in rural as well as urban schools. One percent of school children were tested positive in 1996, but the number of drugs-related youth arrests has doubled between 1996 and 1998. Although the causes are multiple (e.g. opium production and traffic along the Burmese border) the economic crisis and the associated uncertain perspectives for young people have undoubtedly contributed a great deal to the problem. In some schools, drug addiction is nowadays considered a major cause of dropout. “If the students are not addicted to drugs, they will want to come to school so there is no way they will drop out unless they are addicted and were expelled. But it’s hard to say, the reason for their addiction is not the family’s poverty but the opposite.” (a teacher in Bangkok)
According to our respondents, drugs abuse is not directly related to poverty; it is to some extent a ‘regional’ problem. However, children from broken families and children of dealers are seen as very vulnerable goups. “This is a red area for amphetamine, there have been a lot of arrests. Who will the children stay with if both parents are in prison? What chance do they have in life? Our province is in the middle of the drug route, tons and tons of drugs keep passing through here.” (a teacher in Tak)
Community leaders and teachers are convinced that the key to the solution is in the hands of the students’ families. If parents are addicts (or worse, peddlers) the chance of the school or community helping the children is small. Children may
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also take drugs with their parents’ consent in order to be able to work harder to earn money for the family. In Bangkok slums, some parents pull their children out of school to help them selling the drugs since they are less likely to be suspected by the police. “When parents deal in the drug trade, they take the children out of school to help them someone they feel they could really trust” (a teacher in Klong Toey) “I can guarantee you that if the parents are not in the business, the children will not get into it. They are simply paying their gratitude, doing that for their families’ economic survival. Our school has to keep within the boundary, it’s dangerous if we step out of bound. And these children are not addicts, I will say less than 1% of our students are taking drugs.” (a school head in Klong Toey) “The saddest thing is that some children become addicted through their parents. I found out that every weekend, this boy was given water mixed with the drug so he will be more active and work harder in the field, harvesting, tilling. I begged the parents not to do it:’ please let your son come with me for two weeks to rehabilitate’. His mother said ‘But I do not have anyone, his father is dead, who will help me?’ I had to show her the medical report that he was in really bad shape. Now he is cured. However, after they are cured, if they do some type of work such as in the tanning factory they will become addicted again because it is paid by the piece. They have to find a way to work tirelessly.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
3.2 Remedies As with many other social problems, schools can not be expected to eradicate the evil at its roots: legal and police action, including international collaboration, along with medical and social assistance are other important elements in the fight against drugs. However, schools can play an important part in sensitising students, re-educating them if necessary, and in preventing their exclusion. In practice, the attitudes of Thai schools towards students involved in drugs peddling or abuse diverge widely. Whereas some school heads systematically exclude those students or ‘refer’ them to residential programmes as an attempt to keep their school ‘clean’, others are willing to cope with the problem and do not turn down students who are known to have problems. There are several programmes run by the schools and communities to get the students out of their habits. The temples and the monks can also play an important role. “Our school will take on everyone who comes to us, regardless of their past record of drug addiction, otherwise no one else will help solve their problems. We are not afraid to do it,
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because we put ourselves in the shoes of the parents. No matter what they do, they are our children. If no one takes them, that will hurt us most, like being in hell. So we take them on just to relieve the parents’ problem, make them relax, then we will think of the ways to tackle the problem, slowly, step by step.” (an administrator in Klong Toey) “Their conscience is the most significant. We know there are some students who come to school in the morning and help their parents running drugs in the evening. We just tell them, don’t ever do it in the school then gradually try to make them see the right path. You just need patience, and a long, long time.” (a school administrator in Bangkok) “We are near the border, so there are lots of drugs. We have students confessing their addiction. They talk of multiple addiction: heroine, amphetamine, alcohol and cigarettes. We got the confession through our training programme, just try talking to them more and more intensely until they finally see the truth, that is, they cannot continue like this, and have to quit. This programme is run at a temple, to train them about morale and merit, improve their minds. Our school focuses on the danger of drugs, and makes them see how the proper way of living should be. How to make them want to confess is a special technique of our trainer. We have this compulsory training for new students, a four- day course, they will confess on the final day. Last time we had 33 students (out of 170) confessing, 90% are from broken homes, all boys. Their family problems include parents’ divorce, separation, death, migration to Bangkok, parents leaving them with just siblings and sending some money. I invite the monk to school, ask the students to swear in front of the monk and take the healing drug.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
It would no doubt help many other schools cope with the problem if the experience of schools like this one could be disseminated. At the same time, the example illustrates the need for special training sessions for teachers as well as professional support in programmes targeted at schools.
4. Disrupted family life 4.1 Problems We already discussed the problem of children left behind when parents migrate for work. However, this is not the only reason for abandonment. Parents may have separated or died, be imprisoned or addicted. Despite the fact that traditional social networks such as the extended family provide a safety net, many children appear to be neglected and left to their own devices. In such material and emotional circumstances, it must be very hard to stay on at school.
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“In Klong Toey, I think the children’s problem stems from the family. We find them stay outside until almost midnight. The parents broke up, found new mates and each having children still in school. They left the children to fend for themselves, selling lottery-tickets, garland. I am a member of the occupation group and I encourage them to earn money.” (a community leader, Klong Toey) “Some parents are drug addicts or drug peddlers and were put in prison so the kids are left to the care of relatives but not anyone permanently. They get thrown around from one house to another. We give them financial aid but it’s their mental state, these students need to be quiet, not to get mixed with friends.” (a community leader, Klong Toey) “Another factor that may cause risk of dropping out is students whose parents had AIDS. We have four of those in our school, three of whom both parents have died, and two are still in kindergarten. So the problem is not just economic but also their health.” (a school administrator in Tak) “My parents separated when I was in Prathom 2, four years ago. They fought a lot about whom I should stay with, in and out of police stations all the time and took me to stay with various relatives, in different provinces. I had to move around from school to school, I cannot remember how many, may be ten, but certainly more than five. I came back to this pres??ent school for the third time already.” (an 11 year-old girl in Bangkok, Prathom 6)
Although no one has suggested it as a good option, the reality is that there are children of migrating parents who stay with each other or entirely alone, relying on the money their parents in Bangkok send them, 500-600 baht at a time. “I’m the only one staying in my house by myself now. I used to have my older brother with me but he has just gone to join my parents in Bangkok six months ago - they left when I was 9. They send us some money but not enough for the two of us. My brother was unhappy with something, I think it’s because he needed money, he had more expenses than me, he had to buy books and to pay the school fee. He was half way into his Mathayom 5 when he left. I just keep the money at home, I do not want to use the bank, it’s too far and I have to take the bus. I don’t go out at night. I prefer to be at home, all my close friends are the same. I help myself with meals, with the money my mother sends. Some months she doesn’t but I can go to my uncle but he lives quite far away too. I will join my family, next year after finishing Mathayom 3 or maybe later after Mathayom 6. My mother works as a cleaner in a hospital and my father is a day labourer. They need money to buy a motorcycle and a refrigerator. When they finish paying that off, they will come back here. We have only 4 rais of land, so maybe they will open a shop, sell something, I don’t know.” (A 14 year-old-boy in Sri Saket)
Even though the children can take care of their own meals and it is possible for neighbours to drop in daily, staying with adults would certainly be considered a better option. Still, teachers and community leaders do not respond enthusiasti-
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cally to the suggestion of having the children staying with their relatives or neighbours. They would prefer that the schools provide boarding. “It’s not easy to solve the problem by relying on the community to take care of these children. The village is far away from the school, where would they get money for travel? And it’s really too much burden on those people.” (A male school teacher, Sri Saket)
4.2 Remedies Informal networks To some extent, Thai society still has room for these children from broken families. People with no blood relations take in children who become orphaned or left behind by migrated parents. “The girl asked me to be her guardian after her grandmother - who looked after her since she was 9 months old - died last week. Her parents are divorced and are both in Bangkok. She does not want to stay with her aunt and her own uncle who is always drunk. I’m touched and so happy that she put such confidence in me. I discussed with my husband and he said she will not be that big a burden. We will treat her exactly the same way as our own children.” (a community leader in Sri Saket)
Unfortunately there is little guarantee how long the families adopting the children will feel that way and in some cases there is a risk that the children could be exploited and used as free labour. “Her father left her with an alcoholic mother and a 70 year-old grandmother. She does not have money to go to school, her mother has no time for her, she is 14 years now and does not want to go back, she feels she is too big. I am looking after her now because I feel sorry for her, she is diligent, a good worker.” (a male villager who takes care of a dropped out girl in Sri Saket)
The most straightforward policy option is obviously to support informal networks, building on traditional values of solidarity within the extended family. Support can take the form of a financial allowance and/or social guidance to guardians, which at the same time gives local authorities the opportunity to keep an eye on the children in custody and detect child abuse early. Schools also often appeal to the temple for social guidance. Children from broken homes or young delinquents are frequently ‘placed in care’ in temples. However precious such traditional networks are in coping with social problems, there is undoubtedly a need for more specialised services. The development of social
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welfare centres at village level provides an opportunity for more specialised support, if interfaces with schools are established. Boarding schools For children who cannot (fully) rely on relatives, schools can provide boarding facilities. In practice, this involves shelter and cooking facilities as a minimum, while the students need to find their own food brought from home or donated by the community. That option is rarely available basically because of the school’s budget and space limitations. The research team visited one boarding school funded by a donation from the Seven Days Adventist church and the school is having another one built next door from the government budget. Schools that have a bit of land may build a couple of simple cottages each being large enough to accommodate 5-6 students. But again, most schools do not have that option. “The school has a place for students who cannot stay with their parents, either they have gone to Bangkok, or the family has broken up - but mostly the latter. We learned about it from the advisors, that the children are staying with their grandparents who cannot afford to pay for the daily bus fare. The place is built with government’s money, it’s a few houses, 5-6 students per house, not too crowded, only for boys. The Bangkok office does not realise the seriousness of the problem of children from broken homes, they think it’s the school’s responsibility anyway. But we got this budget because we requested it for maintenance of the building we have, not for building new ones. And we got extra money from the school lunch programme.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
What is even more important is the other responsibilities that come with having a dormitory, which is providing food and supervision. For example, schools seem to find having girls requires more responsibility. “We do not want to take girls because it involves an extra burden for the school. If we have girls, then we need to have a female teacher to stay with them. Yes, it looks like we discriminate against girls but we cannot afford to take on that additional burden. If the girls have problems because their parents are away, they just have to stay with their relatives, or whatever can be arranged. There is one special case. The parents of these twin sisters divorced when they were in Prathom 6 and the father became a monk. He asked if his daughters could stay in the school, and the director said yes but they have no money to study. We built a small room for them at the teachers’ house, the teachers’ committee assigned one to look after them and the villagers donate some rice.
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We don’t charge them anything, water, electricity is free. For their pocket money, they do some odd jobs in return, washing, cleaning for the teachers, for 200- 300 baht a month. Now they are both in Mathayom 3 and plan to continue studying.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
5. Cultural obstacles 5.1 Problems On both the supply and demand side of education there are also cultural factors which influence school attendance; parents cannot advocate their expectations from the education system because of specific cultural traditions, and the school culture can raise barriers towards school attendance for specific groups of children. Cultural minorities In the first place, mention must be made of several ethnic and religious minorities for whom access to Thai education is not evident: the large community of Burmese refugees, the hill tribes, the Islamic minority in the South. We will return to the problem of legal obstacles for these minorities in the next chapter, and focus on cultural barriers in this subsection. Even the cultural gap between urban and rural Thailand plays a definite role. One problem is that the school system only uses the official language (central Thai). This is an obvious handicap for groups who do not speak that language, such as the Burmese refugee children and the hill tribes - even though the latter prefer to receive education in Thai because they understand the importance of getting integrated into the mainstream society. Even Thai people in the provinces may face difficulties because their native language is a dialect, which may constitute a handicap in language courses. Not only the language, but also the content of textbooks raises problems for children from cultural minorities. For example, textbooks refer to mainstream Thai society and seem to be less accessible to hill tribe children. Although Islamic schools are subsidised by the government, many children in the South are sent to Koran schools in Malaysia, which may point to a problem of quality in or access to Thai schools. In some exceptional cases, traditional religious beliefs can cause young people to withdraw from education altogether.
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“I visited a student who had been missing class but the parents refused to allow him to return, believing that he is a god’s reincarnation. They let him do anything he wants, grow long hair, even burn all his uniforms and put away his books, and never raised any objection.” (a teacher in Tak)
Gender As mentioned earlier, gender equality is fairly well developed in Thailand. Yet, in some ethnic groups access to school for girls can be limited by cultural role-models. For example it is often assumed that future housewives will not need too much education. This applies to hill tribe children in the North and the Islamic minority in the South, where girls tend to marry at early ages and typically drop out from school at that moment. “The Mong parents are not interested in daughters, only sons. They believe that there is no way girls will use their knowledge for the community so they might as well just finish Prathom 6 and come out to help with parents’ work. This is what causes the women to marry early” (a community leader in Tak) “I was married at 14. My mother arranged it for me. There was no one to work for us since my father died and I am the oldest in the family. I never went to school, it’s only 100 meters from my house but my mother said I cannot understand the language anyway. My husband is a good man, he does not have any education either but he works hard. We will put our children to school so they will have more knowledge which can help them at work.” (A 21-year-old hill tribe girl in Tak)
Marriage at the age of 13-14 is not uncommon among hill tribe students as well as in Islam communities in the South. Marriage automatically means the end of the school career: not only because the young couple is supposed to be self-supporting (in some cases couples stay with their parents for some time) but also because early marriage - and particularly teenage pregnancy - is not tolerated by the mainstream society. Even when young students start dating, the pressure from school mates and/or the school authorities soon becomes so strong that students drop out. The lack of child care services in rural areas adds to this: often neither parents nor grandparents are available to take care of children because they have to work themselves; and day care services are unavailable or unaffordable. Moreover, there seem to be legal obstacles towards married students, as we will see in the next chapter. “This school has a lot of hill tribe students, and we have dropout problems in the lower and upper secondary levels. Around new year, they have a tradition of ‘mate selection’ so several of them would not come back after that.” (a teacher in Tak)
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“Girls drop out mostly to have a family, sometimes even without their parents knowing. One girl here is so well behaved, both at home and at school but one day we discovered she had a boyfriend, got pregnant and just dropped out” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
Parents’ perception of the value of education Another factor is the parents’ perception of the value of education. Parents can be unaware of the benefits of education, even if the quality of education and the link between education and work are as they should be. In the rural areas, where the main source of income is agriculture, parents may have difficulty imagining lives for their children that are any different from their own and thus tend to undervalue the potential benefits of education. Since parents have control over their children, parental perceptions are an important factor in determining whether or not their children will attend school. Parents who are educated themselves tend to understand the importance of education. Research has shown that the mother’s level of education is a significant factor in determining whether or not the children go to school in the Philippines; another study has shown that educated women help their children with homework more in Nepal; educated women also support their daughters’ ambitions more. “If the parents have good education themselves, they will see the value of education. if the parents have a poor educational background, especially with no experience, no social life, just bogged down trying to make a living, if they do not understand where education is going, then I don’t know how they can support their children.” (a teacher in Tak)
Surprisingly, this attitude is found in Bangkok also, even though the parents can obviously see the many opportunities that will open up for their children if they are educated. It could be that they hear a lot about the problems among students in secondary schools and prefer to keep their children away from bad influences. “I am one of my parents’ thirteen children, none of us have more than four years of education and my son does not need more than six years. He is going to be better off getting some work where I can keep an eye on him than going to school and find bad friends who will lead him astray. I heard news everyday of those gangs in Mathayom or vocational school who always fight each other, go to bars and all the bad places.” (A father in Bangkok)
Other reasons for the lack of parental support may be the parents’ own illiteracy or inability to help their children with homework, their lack of information about the returns to education or their desire to have their children helping in the fields, while education is seen as alienating young people from agricultural work.
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“If parents have no education, there will also be other day to day problems with the teachers, with the homework, they would not know whether the kids do it. This is a big negative issue. The teacher can only teach, advise, but without the parents’ help, we are dead. We cannot go on, the students cannot go on. This is most important especially in the rural areas.” (a teacher in Tak) “Parents with agricultural occupations see their neighbours’ children with Mathayom 3 education but do not provide any help, so why should they encourage their own to continue, just the compulsory level is more than enough.” (a community leader in Tak) “The parents have no idea that in the future, education is not just what we learn in the classroom but it’s knowledge in general, they will have to study. The parents do not know and do not care. Do you think they ask their children each evening ‘do you have any homework?’ How many will do that?” (an administrator in Tak)
Exchanging their experiences, teachers agree that different provinces have a different exposure to the returns to education. In the more prosperous central plain, most parents there understand the significance of education. Despite their poverty, they send their kids to school because they see the examples from neighbours’ children who have good education. “But here in our area, we see very few with advanced education.” (an administrator in Tak)
However, many parents do insist on supporting their children to go all the way even though they themselves have no schooling or work in agriculture. “I only know how to write my name but I want my son to study. I can only buy one uniform for him in addition to what he gets from the school. He is not very smart and wants to stop at Prathom 6 but I believe with all my heart that he should continue to the highest level. I never think of having him leave school to help me in the field. Let him finish Prathom 6 first then I will try my best to convince him to go on till Mathayom 3 or even beyond, as far as I can afford. After that I still expect him to work with me in the field.” (a mother in Tak) “I have 9 children, and cannot even afford to feed them all, I just let them work in the field. My children want to study and beg me to go back. I want them to go back too, because in the future, it will be difficult to make a living without education.” (a father in Tak) “In my village, no parents have pulled their children out to help with work, none. Unlike before. Now everyone want their children to learn.” (a community leader in Tak)
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“How much I will support my kid depends on my situation - hether or not I can afford it, but I see Prathom 6 is definitely not enough to survive in the current world, not good for his future. I‘m not going to worry about him having bad influence from friends in school, it’s up to me to educate him. I will find out where he can study without paying a fee, and I will struggle to find him the money for books, uniforms and other things.” (a mother in Bangkok) “Today’s society cannot help our children if they have little education. everybody is so busy and confused. So if my child can be educated, accumulate the knowledge as much as he can, in the end it will be good for him. Mathayom3 or Mathayom 6 still is not enough because now so many people are unemployed. Only if you have your own business, selling food or something, then it’s OK, no need to have any particular skills. But at this point she has no interest in becoming a food vendor. She plans to study more, I cannot ruin her plan so that’s why I say I will struggle as best I can until my last breath.” (a mother in Bangkok)
A youth subculture of consumerism Among teenagers in general, another common problem is the need to emulate their friends and the influence of the materialistic culture. Students in lower secondary school are sometimes more susceptible to outside influence. New values reach the village and the children will go along for a while, for example, by changing the school for factory work in an attempt to earn ‘easy money’. But it depends a lot on how the school helps them recover from it, allowing them to repeat, take extra exams- as long as they have not been absent longer than the limit. “One of the reasons for dropping out is bad examples from people in the village who went to Bangkok and came home for a visit during holiday time. These people brought back new values of spending and materialism to the village. Every time we have this religious festival, we have 5-10 students missing. These people lure them with blue jeans, fancy clothes, and easy cash. The students follow them back to Bangkok and try to find factory work. But there are also cases where the factory would not take them without at least grade 12, so they return home for two more years of school before leaving again.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “Here we do not see bicycles, only motorcycles, every secondary school student seems to have one. They will tell their parents they won’t come to school without it, they want to be equal to their friends and then lay down the conditions for returning to school. If the parents can give them what they want, they will go - for how long is another matter. The parents may have to borrow from the Agricultural Bank, putting up their land as collateral. They are poor but instead of borrowing to invest, to buy fertilisers, they spend it on their children’s motorcycles.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
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“For girls, especially, they don’t really go to school. I see them sitting on the boys’ motorcycle, going into the park, cuddling each other. They will leave home in uniform then go into the public restroom to change clothes. I don’t rely on the school to look after them, there are too many students.” (a father in Bangkok) “It drives me to tears that my own children do not want to study. I have two sons. They prefer to listen to their friends rather than their father. I’m so upset when they insist on leaving after finishing Mathayom 1. Maybe I spoil them too much. I tried to give them some money and asked them to stay. One stayed only one more week, saying that he likes sports, at his old school he had more time to play. The other one stayed one more term then ran away to Bangkok, sent me no letter, nothing. I thought he must have turned into a drug addict. But three months later, he came back for the temple fair. I found out he went to work in a steel firm. He agreed to return to school without much persuasion. I think in Bangkok he realised that those with more education get higher wages, better jobs while he had menial jobs because of his low qualification. So he came back.” (A village head, Chairman of TAO, and chairman of the school committee)
NGOs in Klong Toey agree that children have too many distracting influences: “The school has good accommodation, clean, lunch buffet, computer etc. How do we make children want to come to school? The atmosphere at school cannot compare with that at the shopping mall. So they sneak away. The public sector has to do something, help solve this problem. The policeman does not help at all. The school has to join with the station here and complain. The school has a good environment but outside it is not good because the public disregards it, while this game box is allowed to open all day. They should at least only allow it to open after school. We went to the police, but they said they have permission.” (a community leader and NGO worker, in Bangkok)
At the same time, it appears that schools can sometimes learn from commercial enterprises how to capture the students’ interests. The same NGO worker continues: “Music can be another attraction. Quite a lot of children want to come to school to be in a band or learn music.”
5.2 Remedies Although bi-cultural or intercultural education is generally seen as the adequate response to the needs of ethnic and cultural minorities, it does not seem to exist in Thailand. Some NGOs provide courses in the minorities’ mother tongue as a supplement to non-formal education in Thai. Intercultural education would not only
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be more accessible for the minorities involved, but also propagate tolerance and respect among students from the majority population. There is also a need for sensitisation with respect to early dating and marriage. On one hand, parents and students need to change habits; on the other hand, school communities must learn to provide support rather than exclude the students involved. Parents’ perceptions should be able to penetrate to the value of further (including general) education. Key concepts here include awareness campaigns, parental education and parental participation in the structure and management of the school (Chowdhury, 1994). Here again, participants in the focus groups felt that community leaders could help a great deal because of their authority: “Each year we had a survey of students’ completion in Prathom 6. We found no one dropped out before Prathom 6. I did not do it for the Mathayom because I feel at that level it is the parents’ responsibility whether they will support their own children. All we can do is tell them ‘if the economy gets well again, your children will not be able to get a job, at least they need Mathayom 3’. And they listen. The school used to contact us a couple of years ago to find out if we needed help for extra tutorial. And nonformal education also contacted us but we did not have any need then.” (a community leader in Bangkok, also chair of the school committee) “When there is a village meeting, whatever problem the school has can be brought on the agenda, particularly the dropout issue. We have to convince the parents that soon their children will no longer be able to get a job with just Prathom 6, but at least Mathayom 3 will be required. Besides, the way they are farming now with no systematic method, just by trial and error, it is not good. If you can add a little bit of knowledge, the returns will be a lot higher.” (a community leader in Tak) “It takes a long time to establish a relationship with the people in the community. I have been here 20 years now. I can go in and out of every house. I talk to the parents, ask them ‘don’t you feel ashamed if the neighbour’s kids finish Mathayom 3 and your children do not?’ So they may make all kinds of excuses, asking to stop for one year, whatever, but they never say, none of your business.” (a community leader in Bangkok)
6. The student affairs teacher, a factotum Schools can entrust one or more teachers on a part-time basis with ‘student affairs’. These teachers are responsible for contacts with the parents in case of truancy or social problems. In primary schools, teachers have fairly good contacts with the students’ homes, as they live in the same village. But at the secondary level,
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schools usually serve a much wider area and it is hard to maintain good relationships with all parents. Again, we heard complaints about the heavy caseload, given the great distances to reach parents in sparsely populated areas, but also about the lack of co-operation on the part of parents and the variety of problems to be addressed – truancy just being one out of many. “I went to their house after two days, found both parents and a grandmother. They looked totally blank, refused to accept any responsibility, did not even want to believe me until I asked his friend who lives next door to confirm. There is so much a teacher has to do. The parents should check each morning whether their children come to school but it turns out to be entirely the teachers’ responsibility. Even when they are sick, it’s our job to take them to the medical centre. Sometimes a child gets cut at home, she takes him to school and asks us to clean the wound for him. Formal school requires attendance, homework, responsibility but the children reject the system, prefer the nonformal, they get to dress nicely, come here on Sunday. It’s such a difficult value to change. Anyway we try to bargain with them, if they do not like the formal route, they can join the nonformal, and work so they can be aware how hard the parents earn money for them.” (a teacher in Bangkok) “We also have students who used to be among the top in their former schools and find it hard to accept that there are now many others who get better grades, so they stop coming. It is not easy to follow up with their parents who live in other districts. If they have no telephone, we just have to rely on their friends. Even if we do get them, some parents do not speak Thai. Now we have a new phenomenon: ‘internet addiction’. The shops even provide a place for students to keep their motorcycles out of sight and have a room upstairs.” (a teacher in secondary school, Tak)
7. Conclusion Schools are faced with a multiplicity of social problems that hamper regular participation of their students. Admittedly, most of these problems surpass the school’s responsibility: health problems, family disruption, drugs, handicaps, cultural differences etc. However, they need to be dealt with accurately, either by the school itself or in collaboration with other services. Solutions include school lunch programmes, preventive health care services, special education, boarding facilities for children from broken families, support to these families’ informal networks, professional support for drugs prevention, sensitisation campaigns targeted at parents, intercultural education etc. Schools can (and actually do) take on board a lot of this provision. It would be of great help to promote networking with other, professional services (e.g. in tackling
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drugs problems) or volunteers (parents, monks etc.). Such networks would be of great help in supplementing the efforts and skills of the ‘student affairs teachers’ and in developing ‘multi-service schools’ - a model promoted in Northern countries in fighting social exclusion. The key of this concept is to offer a broad range of related services to disadvantaged groups so as to help fulfil the boundary conditions for succesful education. Obviously, parents can play an important role in this regard. Their involvement in providing the services will also increase their joint commitment to the children’s schooling and thus prevent dropout indirectly. However, parents from the most vulnerable groups cannot be expected to bear much of the burden. A balance will need to be achieved between voluntary and professional support - the latter indeed will inevitably involve extra investments.
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CHAPTER 7 LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS
After having reviewed the economic and social causes of dropout in the previous chapters, we now turn to some legal and administrative problems. On the one hand, the law encourages participation in education (e.g. through free access) or even requires it (through compulsory education). On the other hand, some conditions tend to discourage - or even to prohibit - participation in education for particular groups of young people. The National Education Act 1999 draws a distinction between the citizens’ rights and duties in education: it assigns to every Thai citizen a right to free basic education for 12 years (primary and secondary education), while compulsory education ends with lower secondary education. In fact the compulsory element is rather theoretical: as child allowances or tax deductions for families with children do not exist, their withdrawal can not be used as a sanction in combating truancy or dropout. The law is rather seen as a duty on the part of the government to provide free access. At present its implementation is ensured for lower secondary education, while the full extension to the upper secondary level is foreseen in 2002. The law has also ‘followed’ customs, since the gross enrolment rate in lower secondary education already amounted to 83% in 1998: in other words, the norm of lower secondary education as a minimum level was already widely accepted.
1. Compulsion? Schools must contact the parents when a student has been absent from school for seven days. Schools obviously have an interest in maximising enrolment and combating dropout, as their subsidies have been made dependent on the number of students. Some schools reported during the focus group sessions that they are stricter than requested by law, although they can not exert any power, neither on parents, nor on truants. “When we have students missing more than three days, we will go to their houses but the problem is we often find no one there. Most parents go to the fields early in the morning and
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return late in the evening. They tell us they are totally unaware: ‘he left home at the same time we do and we see him return in the evening’.” (a teacher in Tak) “We will send a letter to the parents if the students have been missing for two days. After four days, the parents will have to come or I will go after them. When I ask ‘why don’t they go to school?’ They just laugh.” (a teacher in Bangkok)
There is only a theoretical possibility that parents can be sanctioned for not fulfilling their parental duties. A stricter approach to compulsory participation would probably affect poor families most and is therefore not desirable. The ‘advantage’ of this soft approach to absenteeism is that schools are indeed forced to use positive rather than repressive measures to prevent dropout. A campaign has been launched by ONPEC with pilot schools in all 875 districts, to achieve a 100% enrolment in their environment. At the same time, the schools involved are requested to report any obstacle in enrolling children. The schools we visited made a number of suggestions for a more effective monitoring of school attendance, using persuasion rather than compulsion. “The school can hire a minibus and make some agreement with the driver to help with the monitor. He knows how many and which students are using the bus, so in the morning if he sees someone missing he can track them down right there in the village. So the school will have both a student leader and the bus driver to help ‘catch’ the truants.” (a community leader in Sri Saket) “I would like to suggest that the school should appoint a leader to monitor their friends, if their friends miss the bus, then punish that leader. The village leader can do it, but their friends can do it even better.” (a community leader in Sri Saket) “I find ‘friend helping friend’ to be very useful. Some kids do not want to come to school but they have friends, so if their buddies try to persuade them, it will work. I feel that the real problem is not parents taking them out to work, it could be more subtle than that, such as being behind in class. Again, if we have their buddies pulling them back, they will come.” (a school head in Tak) “Being older than the rest of the class may be a problem with primary school students, but much less at the secondary level. In fact, they see it as a superiority complex, they become the leader of the pack. The older they are, the more they feel proud. Now, if we use this as an advantage, we will have a high quality student leader. At my school we have students who have left for a few years and when they first came back, they started to have a bad influence. So we talked to them and appointed them as official leaders, each day they have to bring us
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students who break the rules, so they become school ‘inspectors’, and we have them on our side.” (a secondary school teacher in Sri Saket)
2. Entitlement? However, there are still problems with the ‘entitlement’ aspects. The absence of Thai citizenship or house registration is quite frequently quoted as a major obstacle in the access to education. Without citizen’s card and/or house registration, children cannot enrol in public schools. To begin with, Thailand hosts an unknown number of Burmese and other immigrants, more often illegal than legal (some estimates amount to 2-3 million, including 25% children). Those living in isolated rural areas in the North sometimes do not even know of any provision. In the refugee camps, the provision of education is left to the UNHCR and NGOs. The problem of citizenship and house registration is not confined to immigrants, however. Approximately 40% of hill tribe descendants have not as yet been able to obtain the Thai citizen card. And a large number of Thai citizens live in the slums without house registration. “One problem is the children’s birth certificate. Some have to drop out because of this - parents cannot come up with the certificate. But now more organisations are helping out.” (a teacher in Klong Toey)
Attempts have been made indeed to relax these administrative barriers. Many NGOs are aware of the problem of house registration among people who migrate back and forth and have been assisting the residents in this matter. The 11 year old girl testifying in the previous chapter that she had moved at least five times to another school added: “I had to move around from school to school, I cannot remember how many, maybe ten, but certainly more than five. I came back to this present school for the third time already. However, I never missed school for more than one week. When I went to the new school, I was admitted right away.” (an 11 year-old girl in Bangkok, Prathom 6)
In one school in Bangkok, special arrangements were made with the local authorities to accept children without a house registration in the local school through mediation of teachers. However, teachers appear to be reluctant to this practice, as they fear being caught for false declarations. Paradoxically, similar problems arise at the end of the school career, when no legally accredited diplomas can be obtained by those without a citizen’s card. In some cases, the costs involved seem to discourage graduates from claiming their
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certificates. In other cases, a diploma is worthless because the holder can not be legally employed without a citizen’s card or house registration. Apart from the citizen’s card and the house registration, other rules tend to exclude married students and older applicants. Problems relating to the former category were already mentioned in the previous chapter; legal obstacles to education add to their social problems. “If you become a parent it’s not possible to return to school - so you have to enrol in the nonformal course. The rules say that you are beyond the legal age and no longer eligible to continue if you are aged over 15 years, married, or if you completed the highest class. But also in their own mind, they feel very embarrassed of the fact of their having a husband and child. It does not matter whether it’s registered or not, in a small village everybody will soon know and the society will put pressure on them - in the village, at the school.” (a teacher in Tak)
Some teachers feel sympathetic towards girls who have to leave school because of their pregnancy but they have to conform to the rules. They try to help as much as possible, so the girls can at least finish the year. “If girls drop out, it’s usually because of their love lives. We have no objection if they want to continue but the ministry’s regulation is that students have to be single, no married persons can come to school. This single status is a very strict regulation. It’s true that if they do not register their marriage, they are still single legally, but we have to think what the rest of the students will think of the administrator because it’s common knowledge they are living together. Why are they still allowed to remain in school? But they tend to drop out immediately. Sometimes we learn about them, but pretend we do not know.” (a teacher in Sri Saket) “Sometimes we will turn a blind eye until they finish the level. Their friends actually try to protect their secret unless of course they become pregnant. I suggest that they join the nonformal course. But unless it’s too obvious we will keep them.” (a female secondary school teacher in Sri Saket)
Teachers feel the same way about the age regulation. If children who have dropped out for a few years want to return to school again despite having to be the oldest one in class, they try to give encouragement. “The boy’s age is not an issue because we still have his name on the registrar. Only if he specifically states that he wants to leave then we will cross out his name. Also, the age is not a disqualification for financial aid, he can still apply.” (a school head in Sri Saket) “Our school tries to help students returning to class but we have to conform to the regulation, if they are beyond the age limit, we have to ask permission, both from the ONPEC dis-
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trict office and the parents. The parents must insist that they want their children to continue, then we can do it. But in my experience, whether the children will come back depends on the school, especially the teachers.” (a teacher in Sri Saket)
Another group faced with barriers are juvenile delinquents placed in public care or in prison. Although they are not legally excluded, the education provided in these institutions is said to be minimal.
3. Conclusion Whereas many rich countries are struggling with the enforcement of compulsory education, using financial sanctions and placement in homes for young people as ‘big sticks’, Thailand has opted for a softer approach. The law on universal basic education combines obligations (in the form of compulsory education up to the lower secondary level) with an entitlement to free education up to the end of upper secondary. On the other hand, some groups are still faced with discrimination in the access to schools (or to qualifications): hill tribes, slum dwellers, older applicants and married students tend to be excluded rather systematically by admission rules. Legal solutions for these forms of discrimination seem to be an absolute priority - while they should not involve dramatic costs. As regards refugees and illegal immigrants, the social and budgetary implications are more complex: it therefore seems legitimate to claim support from the international community in addressing the needs of these groups.
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1. The context This report is part of a research and action programme under the auspices of the Thai Office of the National Education Commission (ONEC) to combat school dropout in basic education. The programme was set up with support from the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Trust Fund, administered by the World Bank, following the financial crisis of 1997 which adversely affected children’s welfare in general, and their education opportunities in particular. Whereas a quantitative sample survey of the extent and distribution of dropout has been carried out by the Department of Economics of Thammasat University, our task was to collect more in-depth information about the causes of the problem. This was done through a survey of existing documents, a series of individual interviews with various stakeholders (policy makers, administrators, school administrators, teachers, parents and young people) followed by focus group interviews in three localities. Our findings, together with those of the quantitative survey, should inform the next phase of the programme, which will consist of pilot projects focussed on key issues identified here. Hence, our conclusions reach beyond the mere analysis of causes: they also contain recommendations for the action programme. The financial crash of 1997 undoubtedly had a short-term impact on increased school dropout during the ongoing school year as well as on transition rates between subsequent cycles of education at the beginning of the next school year. Fortunately, the available figures tend to show that this temporary collapse has not reversed the strong long-term rise in school participation overall. However, it has raised the consciousness of policy makers and the world community about the vulnerability of the education sector in adverse economic circumstances. The upsurge in dropout rates has suddenly drawn the attention to the underlying problem of hundreds of thousands of children who, due to persistent poverty,
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Conclusions and recommendations
were not able to participate in education already before the crisis. We therefore decided not to confine our analysis to dropout in the narrow sense, but to include non-enrolment and non-progression in our analysis. According to estimates for 1997, some 10% of the children did not participate in primary education (Prathom 1-6), and 25% in lower secondary (Mathayom 1-3).
2. Removing the obstacles in the access to education When digging into the causes of non-enrolment and dropout, child poverty appears clearly as the common root of many related problems: physical deprivation (lack of food and clothing) undermines children’s energy and self-esteem, which are preconditions for participation. For many parents, the direct costs of education still constitute a considerable obstacle, despite legal regulations about free education, support programmes launched by the government and fund-raising efforts on the part of schools. Rural poverty also triggers migration to other rural and urban areas, each time interrupting the school careers of children. Poverty often makes child labour indispensable, either as a substitute for parents’ work at home (when both parents need to earn a living), or as a helping hand on the parents’ farm, or as a source of income (when children themselves need to supplement the family income). Finally, in some cases, poverty paves the way to delinquency and drugs addiction, dragging the children away from school, destroying their families and spoiling their lives. Whereas obviously the education sector is unable to solve the problem of child poverty as a whole, contributions can be made in at least three ways: (a) fighting child exploitation, (b) raising material and financial aid to students, and (c) further reducing the direct costs of education. There is an almost general consensus among our respondents that eradicating child labour would have disastrous effects on the poorest families. The correct strategy is to humanise the working conditions and to fight exploitation. For example, commercial placement services withholding part of the children’s wages as a commission should be prosecuted more actively and sanctioned more severely. The same applies to employers imposing sex work, night work during the school year or excessively heavy work. A minimum wage for under-13s may soften the exploitation of small children. On the other hand, opportunities for decent work may be created by schools or with their collaboration. The ongoing income generating projects need to be re-oriented towards activities that supplement the village economy rather than competing with it. They also need more technical and economic support. Formulae of part-time work combined with parttime schooling at secondary level deserve further consideration.
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Several dilemmas were raised by respondents as regards material and financial aid. Most importantly, a balance has to be found between universal and selective support mechanisms. Although selective aid is generally fairer and less resourceintensive, it entails a risk of perverse effects by stigmatising the poorest. This issue was raised in the context of the school lunch programme, which in many schools has actually already been extended to cover all students. We would therefore recommend - if possible - to provide universal support to the most visible forms of daily consumption such as school milk, school lunch and transport services (see below), while including all children in the school’s income generating activities. On the other hand, ‘one-shot’ aid such as free uniforms and books as well as financial aid can easily be kept selective. Teachers generally are not very sympathetic towards aid in the form of student grants: these would allegedly be misused for ‘consumerist’ purposes or disappear in the overall family budget, whereas the teachers themselves are reluctant towards the burden of co-administration of grants. Note that neither parents, nor students have ever made any comments about misuse. In our opinion, financial aid is not merely intended to cover direct school-related expenses such as a school bag or paper and pencils. It is in the first place meant to encourage school participation, whether it is being spent on school items or food or any other consumption goods or even whether it simply counterbalances the opportunity yield of child labour. Teachers’ control on the use of financial aid can be confined to cases of obvious mismanagement of household budgets. Given the limited coverage and modest amounts of the present grants, we would recommend an extension rather than a suppression of the system (see chapter 3). This would also reduce the need for private scholarship funds, which are hard to co-ordinate and could equally well be spent on other educational projects. The balance between equity (selectivity) and administrative simplicity and the extension of scholarships to nonformal education (for non-working students) deserve further discussion. As regards the direct costs of basic education, it should be acknowledged that neither parents nor children reported any violation of the law. Yet they felt that the remaining costs (for an extra school uniform, for extras such as computer classes, or for daily expenses such as food or school material) still constitute a problem. The absence of any government-funded school bus provision remains a major obstacle in sparsely populated areas: while public transportation is either nonexistent or too expensive and parents are hardly able to afford motorcycles for their children, the walking distance means a psychological obstacle and a loss of time that could otherwise be spent on homework or help in the family. ONPEC’s (suppressed) school transportation programme was therefore greatly appreciated: it is worth considering to re-introduce it - and even extend it to all levels of basic education.
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3. Raising the benefits of education The greater the (perceived) benefits of education, the more families are willing to invest in it - provided they have access to the resources needed. Although it is striking to see how strongly education is generally valued by the Thai population, its attractiveness can be improved. The major problem with the extension of the mandatory school leaving age is the low relevance of secondary education in rural areas. The share of agricultural education has remained marginal compared to the share of the population involved in agricultural and related activities. Lower secondary education typically gives access to service jobs in smaller urban areas, while upper secondary mainly leads to higher-level industry and service jobs in the city. Some youngsters therefore do not see the use of pursuing education after Prathom 6 (primary education), unless they have ambitions to migrate. Parents overburdened by their work on the farm even complain that the school alienates their children from agricultural work and makes them turn up their noses at farm work. Although many parents would agree that industry is likely to provide a better future for their children, one should not forget that agriculture still constitutes a very important economic sector (with about 50% of total employment)21 and that the rural exodus entails many social risks. More and better agricultural education may contribute to a more balanced economic development as well as a more attractive education system. Some disadvantaged groups of the population (e.g. hill tribe families, villagers from remote areas) feel discriminated on the labour market irrespective of their schooling. This means that their expected returns from education and their propensity to invest are lower. Apart from anti-discrimination rules (which lie beyond the scope for intervention by the Ministries of education) schools can support these groups by providing placement services. Another reason why children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds drop out of school is an accumulation of deficits throughout the school career due to multiple deprivation. The interaction of social, economic and academic factors triggers a vicious circle of falling behind, repeating grades, feeling too old compared to the rest of the class, getting demotivated, missing school and ultimately giving up. In many countries, targeted early childhood intervention programmes have proven to have substantial positive effects on the children’s later school performance. These programmes combine psychomotor and cognitive stimulation activities, health care, educational support to parents. In the Thai context, they can be set up
21 This figure includes forestry, hunting and fishing
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in collaboration with pre-schools or NGOs. We have indeed seen examples in the slums of big cities. Schools are aware of possibilities to improve their attractiveness to young people, provided they can invest more in their infrastructure (electricity, sports accommodation …), in transport services (see above), in the quality of provision and, above all, in personnel. Cutbacks in the free lunch programme, in transport services, in teacher/student ratios, together with the closing down of small schools in sparsely populated areas, have exacerbated these problems and probably affected the quality of education amidst a phase of quantitative expansion. Some schools have seen their teacher-student ratio collapse since the recruitment restrictions following the crisis. Most teachers interviewed in this study complain about the incompatibility of their teaching duty with other important tasks such as the monitoring of attendance, home visits, social guidance etc. The caseload of the ‘student affairs’ teachers should be shared with other, possibly more specialised personnel: this can occur either within the school or in networks with other local actors (welfare service, temple, local authorities).
4. Tackling social, cultural and legal barriers The foregoing analysis is based on a cost-benefit approach, where dropout is considered a rational choice in circumstances when costs are unbearable or benefits doubtful. Apart from these arguments, there are other obstacles to participation which have less to do with rational calculus. Health problems play an important role in some areas. Schools have access to a ‘hardship allowance’ in acute circumstances such as a malaria epidemic. However, Thai children would greatly benefit from more preventive health care (systematic medical screening, inoculation, nutritional education etc.). Many children faced with handicaps still have no access to education due to lack of provision. The government currently invests in special education as well as inclusive education in mainstream schools. This is a correct strategy: both types of approaches are indispensable. Inclusive education is unfortunately not feasible for all handicapped students. Nor should it be seen as a ‘cheap alternative’, given that it requires special investments, training of personnel etc. Family problems caused by addiction, separation, migration or death of parents weigh heavily on the educational opportunities of children. Increased investments in boarding facilities and social support would certainly improve their chances. For children migrating with their parents, special arrangements between ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ schools (or even mobile schools in cases of groupwise migration) may allow for more continuity in school careers.
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Drugs problems also affect the children themselves. We have seen nice examples of drugs programmes set up by schools, NGOs and temples. While their experience can be transferred to others, there is also an obvious need for more specialised services in this respect. Cultural obstacles need to be overcome between ethnic minorities (hill tribes, Muslims, immigrants) and mainstream Thai education - on both sides. Whereas girls in these minorities should be encouraged to participate more, the education system should also take on board the language and culture of these minorities as an enrichment for all. Early marriage of hill tribe girls should of course be dealt with as a problem, but should no longer be stigmatised and sanctioned by exclusion from school. More generally, legal barriers in the access to education need to be reconsidered. This applies to the requirements relating to birth certificates, housing registration, age ceilings and civil status. Such rules are in contradiction with the government’s own ambition to ensure education for all.
5. Preventing future economic shocks that may harm the education system The aggregate trends tend to suggest that the direct impact of the 1997 crisis on school dropout in Thailand has remained limited. On the other hand, several stakeholders - mainly teachers and school administrators – have complained about the lack of resources in trying to offer good quality education. Now after the crisis government expenditures per student have dropped by 12%; ONPEC's transportation programme has been suppressed; student loans have been abolished; the school lunch programmes have suffered; teacher-student ratios have risen ... On the demand side, the temporary upsurge in dropout in 1997-98 clearly had to do with unemployment, falling wages, a deterioration of children’s health in the poorest families or regions, and increased school expenditures of households. In sum, the harmful effects of the crisis on the education system cannot be denied. Some of them are expected to have a lasting impact: some forms of damage to children’s health is irreversible; and the debt service to the IMF and other creditors will weigh for many years on the government budget. In advocating the re-development of social programmes in education and a better staffing in schools, we inevitably touch upon the macroeconomic issues of government budget management, austerity policy following the financial crisis and the role of the international community in preventing and curing such financial crises in the future. Two questions are worth considering in this respect: −
Had there been more regulated financial markets during the crisis (e.g. through better controls on in- and outgoing capital), would the waves of
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speculation accompanying the crisis have caused equal damage to the country? (Put differently, will international financial institutions reconsider their doctrine with respect to the benefits of free capital markets following this experience?) −
Would temporary moratoria on debt repayments or other measures of debt relief - under the auspices of international institutions - not be useful to make room for ‘cushioning’ rather than restrictive budgetary and monetary government measures in similar circumstances?
These questions reach far beyond the scope of our study, but curing the social consequences without preventing the causes may be a waste of time and effort.
6. Concluding remarks We want to stress again that our analysis of the school dropout problem in Thailand should be seen against the background of a very positive general trend. The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented increase in school participation, and the crisis has only slowed down this trend. The Thai government as well as schools and families have made enormous sacrifices to achieve the goal of basic education for all. However, the remaining problems are concentrated among the most vulnerable groups and therefore deserve extra efforts. The proposals put forward above do have their price. Given the probable impossibility to implement all of them fully and simultaneously, we would suggest to concentrate the action programme in so-called ‘education priority areas (or schools)’, i.e. areas or schools selected on the basis of objective parameters measuring poverty and educational deprivation. A concentration of resources on welldesigned pilot projects in these areas, duly accompanied by experts and scientifically evaluated, will maximise efficiency and will probably generate multiplier effects in the long run. They can be seen as try-outs for more structural measures to be gradually generalised by the government in a next stage. Apart from the pilot programme, immediate legal action should be feasible to abolish discrimination against slum dwellers with no housing registration, hill tribes, older applicants and married girls, as well as to fight the exploitation of children.
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