Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA Education Management and Finance Study July 1999 b. The method recommended here is the use of actual attendance counts, on a weekly or monthly basis. Schools could report average weekly attendance instead of June enrollment as their official student count. Since schools already do take attendance regularly, this would not represent a substantial additional clerical burden on teachers or administrators. It would simply be necessary for provincial and central officials to devise new procedures and reporting processes to collect this information. It would also be necessary for periodic auditing of attendance reports to ensure accuracy. This could become part of the routine financial auditing processed conducted by the provincial education authorities under the decentralized system. 3.2.2.5. Per-student guideline method a. This method is based on the assumption that finance allocation policy should reflect concern for both quality and efficiency. Therefore, the per-student amounts should be based on some estimate of the cost of an efficient, high quality program. Rather than a cross-sectional approach, these estimates could be based on a sample of high performing schools at each level and in each region or province. The high performance criteria for selecting the sample should be comprehensive, so that the sample includes schools that reflect a diversity of different models or concepts of high performance. A detailed survey of inputs and input costs should then be done in each school by a team of researchers visiting each school. The data should include reviewing budgets, all revenues and expenditures, contributions in kind, etc., broken out by level and subject of study. The researchers will also collect data on student outcomes, including achievement scores, transition rates, possibly reverse tracer studies to review success of graduates as well. These data can then be used to calculate per-student input costs for all the schools in the sample. Since all the schools are high performing, the lower per-student input costs would reflect greater efficiencies. These efficiencies could then be statistically adjusted for the effects of non-financial inputs that could effect efficiencies, such as student previous achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher qualifications. The adjusted per-student expenditures would more closely reflect operational efficiencies and could then be used as guidelines for per-student amounts in allocation policies. b. Since conditions change and performance may vary considerably from year to year, this estimating procedure would properly be an annual or biennial activity. To keep the sample representative of existing schools, it should be re-drawn for each estimate. The schools and results of the studies should be a matter of public record after the fact, so as to ensure transparency and fairness in the analysis. 3.2.2.6. Allocation modeling and decision making Using formulas and per-student calculations in educational finance policy making adds a layer of complexity to the process. When decisions are made in terms of overall allocation amounts, the budget and distributional consequences of the decisions are readily and quickly calculated. When the policy decision making is in terms of formulas and per-student amounts, understanding the consequences 94
Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA Education Management and Finance Study July 1999 requires more complex calculations, based on models or simulations of the finance system, enrollments, and school distributions. The use of such tools requires an up-to-date database with the necessary inputs to the calculations, as well as the appropriate calculation tools. The calculation tools are well understood and readily available, though not in common use in this setting. So establishing the analytical capacity for testing the consequences of formula alternatives is not a major problem. It would require training of a relatively small number of central government staff in the basic techniques, the acquisition of appropriate software and computing equipment, and development of the specific models reflecting the Thai policy context. However, the lack of adequate data is a serious impediment to this approach. Attention to this matter is discussed in the section on overall information systems problems and recommendations. 3.2.2.7. Appropriate sharing levels The sharing of financial responsibility is another key issue in the design of a finance system. The recommendation for this system is an 80/20 per cent central vs. local sharing ratio. That is, the overall ratio of central government to local educational authority expenditure would be in a ratio of 80 per cent central to 20 per cent local. The 80 per cent proportion in this recommendation is chosen arbitrarily as the point from which to conduct the policy debate. The matter of what sharing proportion is appropriate for the central government is a major policy issue. The number chosen will affect the overall size of the education budget, as well as the operation of the equalization support mechanism. So the proposal for this particular sharing level is intended to be a reasonable starting point for that debate, not a final recommendation based on some scientific analysis. The way in which the 80 per cent share operates in the overall finance scheme is discussed in more detail below. 3.2.2.8. The issue of mobilizing private resources a. These recommendations concentrate primarily on allocation of government revenues to education, and relatively little attention to private resources. The main discussion of private resources is in a later section on higher education finance. But some discussion of the general issue of mobilizing private resources is useful at this point. In current discussions of finance system reforms, considerable rhetoric has been addressed to the topic of mobilizing increased flows of private resources into education. One premise underlying this objective is flawed, and as a result the rhetoric is often misleading and counterproductive. The basic flaw is the implicit notion that school finances come from two sources: government resources and private resources. But in fact all government resources come, in the first instance, from the private sector, whether it be through collection of taxes, operation of state enterprises, or direct conscription of labor, as in the military. Thus all the financial resources that government now allocates to education are mobilized from the private sector. Therefore the implications of a proposal to mobilize more financial resources from the private sector really hinge on whether the mechanism of mobilization is compulsory, as in a tax increase, or voluntary. It is assumed here that these proposals refer to voluntary mechanisms, rather than tax increases. 95
Page 1 and 2:
- Volume II/3 - Educational Finance
Page 3 and 4:
Table of Contents A. Executive Summ
Page 5 and 6:
Table of Tables Table 1 Adjustments
Page 7 and 8:
Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20 Figur
Page 9 and 10:
Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony.
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52: Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony.
Page 101: Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony.
Page 123 and 124: mission and operations. The term
Page 125 and 126: The information requirements for fi
Page 127 and 128: Table 1: Continued Dept. Flow of Re
Page 129 and 130: Table 1: Continued Dept. Flow of Re
Page 131 and 132: Description and assessment of compu
Page 133 and 134: Table 3: Existing computer systems
Page 135 and 136: Table 3: Continued Current existing
Page 137 and 138: Description of flows of financial i
Page 139 and 140: (teachers, facilities, etc) if data
Page 141 and 142: Table 4: Continued. Content of curr
Page 143 and 144: Table 5: Assessment of information
Page 145 and 146: An assessment of information system
Page 147 and 148: general administration, these syste
Page 149 and 150: Recommendation for IS Most involved
Page 151 and 152: 6. The nation wide implementation.
Page 153 and 154:
References Office of the permanent
Page 155 and 156:
Office of private education commiss
Page 157 and 158:
Interviews 10 September 1998, 9:00-
Page 159 and 160:
Appendix 2 Projections of Costs of
Page 161 and 162:
Projected Cost Increases for Expand
Page 163 and 164:
Identification of Schools for Sampl
Page 165 and 166:
8. Please place an X in a box below
Page 167 and 168:
enrollment as a whole growing at an
Page 169 and 170:
Figure 1: Thailand’s Development
Page 171 and 172:
Table 5: Crude transition rates of
Page 173 and 174:
and level of education, 1993 and 19
Page 175 and 176:
2.31 Questionable quality of educat
Page 177 and 178:
income inequality between agricultu
Page 179 and 180:
4.1.4. The percentages calculated f
Page 181 and 182:
Table 11: Public and Private sector
Page 183 and 184:
4.3.8. As would be expected, unempl
Page 185 and 186:
5.7 The dilemma is to balance the s
Page 187 and 188:
Table 14: Unemployment and Underemp
Page 189 and 190:
there any activities that would be
Page 191 and 192:
References Chalongphob Sussangkarn
Page 193 and 194:
Appendix 6 BMA Voucher Policy A. Lo
Page 195 and 196:
Appendix 7 Finance Allocation Metho
Page 197 and 198:
Appendix 8 Program Structure of the
Page 199 and 200:
Not all possible flows are show, si
Page 201 and 202:
Appendix 11 Results of Regression A
show all

Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?