Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

enrollment as a whole growing at an annual rate of 12 per cent. Pre-crisis enrollment in
compulsory education (nine years) reached 97.7 per cent in 1996 (NESDB, 1996a).
Table 1: Government expenditure on education, as a percentage of
the government budget, and as a percentage of GDP.
Education budget as % of
Year Government budget GDP
1989 16.6 2.6
1990 17.9 2.7
1991 19.3 3.0
1992 18.6 3.0
1993 19.3 3.4
1994 19.5 3.5
1995 19.2 3.4
1996 20.3 3.7
1997 21.9 3.9
1998 24.9 4.0
1999 25.3 n.a.
Source: Government Budget, various years, GDP figures from Bank of Thailand.
2.4 In 1993, enrollment in public institutions as a proportion of total enrollment was 83.6
per cent. More recently, however, attempts have been made to accommodate greater
private sector participation, especially in areas where external benefits are not perceived
to be significant. In pre-primary education the government share is currently only about
58 per cent, and at the undergraduate level its share, excluding the open universities, has
dropped from 75 to 69 per cent during the last decade. Private participation in vocational
training, in particular, has increased so significantly that the public sector share has
dropped from 90 per cent in 1979 to only 53 percent in 1993 (MOE, 1995).
2.5 With respect to non-formal education, the government operates a wide spectrum of
programs, ranging from functional literacy groups, mobile technical-training units,
seminars, radio programs, correspondence courses, and reading corners. These services
are likely to have contributed to the advances in literacy that have been achieved over the
years, catering to those missing out on formal opportunities of learning. Consequently
literacy rates in Thailand are among the highest in the region, particularly in terms of
female literacy. Educational expansion has also been translated into significant changes in
the occupational distribution of the labor force prior to the crisis(NSO, 1996).
2.6 In the midst of crisis the government is attempting to maintain budget allocations to
the education sector as Table 2 demonstrates. Appropriations for education have in fact
increased in the midst of crisis, increasing to 24.93 and 25.29 per cent of the budget in
1998 and 1999 respectively.
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