Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok
Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok
Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok
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F<strong>in</strong>al Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: <strong>Educational</strong> <strong>F<strong>in</strong>ance</strong> <strong>UNESCO</strong>-PROAP TA 2996-THA<br />
Education Management and <strong>F<strong>in</strong>ance</strong> Study July 1999<br />
be registered by the OPEC. This would be the primary government quality control<br />
mechanism. Registration would be for five year, renewable periods, and can be<br />
revoked at any time for cause, the details of which would be spelled out <strong>in</strong><br />
legislation and regulations. The size of the subsidy would be set at 35 per cent of<br />
the per-student subsidy amount for the government schools, with an amount equal<br />
to an additional 35 per cent of the per-student government subsidy as a fund for<br />
scholarships to students from low-<strong>in</strong>come families. Under such a scheme,<br />
registered schools would receive some government support. Those schools<br />
enroll<strong>in</strong>g higher proportions of poor students would receive higher support,<br />
improv<strong>in</strong>g the educational opportunities for those children. The private schools<br />
would cont<strong>in</strong>ue to depend on private resources to f<strong>in</strong>ance the full program, thus<br />
ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>centives for mobiliz<strong>in</strong>g these resources for education.<br />
e. At the implementation of such a policy, all exist<strong>in</strong>g OPEC and non-proprietary<br />
schools would receive an <strong>in</strong>itial registration without review, <strong>in</strong> order to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong><br />
operations. All private owner schools would receive a provisional one-year<br />
registration, which must be reviewed and transferred to a regular five-year<br />
registration with<strong>in</strong> the first year. Any private owner schools which cold not meet<br />
the registration conditions would be removed from government subsidy at the end<br />
of the first year.<br />
3.3. Higher education f<strong>in</strong>anc<strong>in</strong>g<br />
3.3.1 Level of subsidy<br />
a. The overall subsidy of higher education should be reduced. The current subsidy<br />
ratio of over 90 per cent of the direct costs of higher education cannot be defended<br />
on either efficiency or equity grounds. The ma<strong>in</strong> issues for reform are the<br />
appropriate level of subsidy to use as a policy goal, and a mechanism for ensur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
equitable access to higher education for poor students <strong>in</strong> a system with higher fees<br />
and expenses for <strong>in</strong>dividual students and families. The typical system for the<br />
f<strong>in</strong>anc<strong>in</strong>g of higher education consists of subsidies to <strong>in</strong>stitutions, loans and<br />
subsidies to students, and substantial private expenditure on direct and <strong>in</strong>direct<br />
costs of education. Reasonably current estimates of the ratios of subsidies to<br />
private costs of higher education for neighbor<strong>in</strong>g countries are not available for<br />
comparative purposes. However estimates from OECD countries are available, for<br />
both centralized and decentralized systems. For the mostly decentralized OECD<br />
countries 21 , the public expenditure on higher education is approximately twothirds<br />
of the total. For the same countries, as well as the mostly centralized<br />
countries 22 , the ratio of expenditure on higher education relative to lower<br />
education is less approximately 2:1. This latter proportion reflects much higher<br />
participation rates of upper secondary education <strong>in</strong> the OECD countries than <strong>in</strong><br />
<strong>Thailand</strong>. So a somewhat higher ratio may be a more reasonable short-range goal.<br />
Overall, however, these levels of support and subsidy seem like reasonable<br />
longer-term policy goals for <strong>Thailand</strong>.<br />
21 These countries are Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, U.K. and U.S. (OECD Indicators,<br />
1997).<br />
22 These countries are Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Portugal.<br />
(OECD Indicators, 1997)<br />
104