Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

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Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA Education Management and Finance Study July 1999 8. Issues of equity 8.1 Financial equity a. Overall, there do not appear to be gross or systematic inequities in the allocation of educational resources to basic education across provinces or regions. With the exception of the specific instances discussed in the following section, the existing financial policies appear to be adequate in providing roughly equal budget and teacher resources across provinces and regions. There are notable instances, however, where budget and teacher allocations are lower to regions or provinces with lower income or wealth levels. And overall, the finance system does not appear to be effective in equalizing or compensating for these provincial or regional disparities. b. An examination of allocation of both financial and teacher resources to primary education shows a pattern of wealth neutrality. This consistency with respect to wealth differences has both positive and negative implications. It is positive in that the existing policies and investments do not apparently aggravate existing wealth or other disparities. However, the wealth disparities among the provinces are substantial. To treat them all equally with respect to the government’s educational allocations does little to compensate for the disadvantages of poverty and relative isolation. c. Other resource allocation patterns are more wealth neutral by comparison. These include the allocation of teachers among regions. There is some variation in the primary level student/teacher ratios, particularly between the northern and southern regions, with approximately 20:1 and slightly over 25:1 respectively. While significant in terms of financial implications, differences of this magnitude in class sizes are not likely to be important in educational terms. It is clear from that teacher allocation patterns are neither equalizing nor disequalizing relative to regional wealth. d. Equality of educational opportunity can also be reflected in the performance of the students or schools. The differences observed between primary-lower and lower-upper level transition rates are substantial, suggesting important disparities in educational opportunity. The range of almost 20 % between the lowest (Northeastern) and highest (Southern) rates is too large to be attributed to chance. Since the other three regions are roughly equal, the disparity between the high and low cases appears to represent some marked difference between the educational and socioeconomic conditions of these two regions. The difference cannot be attributed to variations in the resources allocated to the educational system, as the foregoing analysis shows. While not the cause of such disparities, financial policies should be crafted to help ameliorate them. 8
Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA Education Management and Finance Study July 1999 8.2. Student count allocation mechanisms and parent choice: implications for equity and efficiency The current reforms increase the possibility for parent choice of schools, and remove some financial barriers to choosing. This has implications for the proposed Student-Count Allocation mechanism. Therefore the review included an examination of the possible impacts of increased choices for parents, linked to “free” or subsidized attendance and the chosen school. This was explored through a sample of focus groups of parents formed for this project. The study was conducted based on a small sample of parent focus groups. The group discussions were recorded and summarized by the research team. (A detailed analysis of the parent’s comments is found in the Appendix). 8.2.1. The parental choice focus groups The results of this focus group study reveal considerable complexity in parent’s views of school choice. The results also show that the impacts of a free choice scheme on the actual attendance patterns and parental choices will be very hard to predict. First, it was clear from the comments that parents have high expectations for their students and their schools. The comments reveal parents with a very high value for education, and a strong willingness to support education financially, and find the best schools for their children. As a result, the parents take into account more than expenses when choosing a school. The most frequently mentioned concerns were the reputation of the school, quality of teaching and school facilities, safety, closeness to home, attitudes and behavior of teachers, good discipline, and number and quality of activities and equipment. Of course the cost of sending children to school was mentioned frequently as well, but the cost factors mentioned extend beyond tuition and fees to clothing, transportation, food, and other incidentals. But it seems clear in the comments that financial considerations are only one, and not necessarily the major factor in this decision process. Because this is a multi-factor problem, introducing the free choice as away of alleviating the financial considerations does not by itself seem to produce massive changes in choices. Overall, only 38 of the 105 parents who responded (36.2%) said they would choose another school if it were free.. In the districts with high choice (many alternative schools) the proportion of parents who would change increased to 41%, a significant shift, but still well below half. And almost half of those who chose different schools (10/23) came from one primary school. 9. Information systems for financial management and policy Financing an efficient and effective education system requires high quality information resources for management and policy decision making. Therefore this review of the finance system includes attention to the information systems and resources involved in providing finances for education. 9
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mission and operations. The term
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The information requirements for fi
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Table 1: Continued Dept. Flow of Re
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Table 1: Continued Dept. Flow of Re
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Description and assessment of compu
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Table 3: Existing computer systems
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Table 3: Continued Current existing
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Description of flows of financial i
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(teachers, facilities, etc) if data
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Table 4: Continued. Content of curr
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Table 5: Assessment of information
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An assessment of information system
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general administration, these syste
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Recommendation for IS Most involved
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6. The nation wide implementation.
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References Office of the permanent
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Office of private education commiss
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Interviews 10 September 1998, 9:00-
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Appendix 2 Projections of Costs of
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Projected Cost Increases for Expand
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Identification of Schools for Sampl
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8. Please place an X in a box below
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enrollment as a whole growing at an
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Figure 1: Thailand’s Development
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Table 5: Crude transition rates of
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and level of education, 1993 and 19
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2.31 Questionable quality of educat
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income inequality between agricultu
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4.1.4. The percentages calculated f
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Table 11: Public and Private sector
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4.3.8. As would be expected, unempl
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5.7 The dilemma is to balance the s
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Table 14: Unemployment and Underemp
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there any activities that would be
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References Chalongphob Sussangkarn
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Appendix 6 BMA Voucher Policy A. Lo
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Appendix 7 Finance Allocation Metho
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Appendix 8 Program Structure of the
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Not all possible flows are show, si
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Appendix 11 Results of Regression A
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Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

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