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 funding for special projects to improve school facilities and programs. If a school is seen as moving up in reputation, due to such improvements, teachers are more likely to seek transfers there. Changes in budget and finance policies could provide funding and discretion for financial incentives for individual teachers as well as special development funds to make remote school more desirable. This could reduce the maldistribution of teachers as well as result in overall quality improvements in disadvantaged schools. i. If local school officials were given the authority to determine teacher and other staff salaries, their budget discretion, and ability to achieve increases in efficiency would also grow considerably. This was pointed out in interviews with primary school principals in particular. One school, for example, was using two teachers receiving full teaching salaries for clerical and low-level administrative duties. These were the only staff available to the principal for these tasks. The teachers were already allocated to the school, and she did not have the discretion to use their salaries to hire lower paid workers, freeing up funds for other uses. This was clearly an inefficient use of resources, and had a negative impact on the morale of the teachers as well. Such inefficiencies are unavoidable when local administrators have no control of such key resources. More efficient use of resources could also help improve school facilities, programs, and other amenities, making, resulting in schools more desirable places to work. 2.2. Government expenditure issues a. Educational support is clearly a high priority for the Government, both in terms of expenditure levels and in national planning. This fact does not, however, settle the issue of whether support levels are sufficient. This section explores the evidence related to the question of whether the Royal Thai Government is spending enough on education. That questions is explored in terms of current plans and goals, comparisons with other countries, and what appear to be pressing needs growing out of the economic crisis and plans for economic recovery. b. The overall conclusion reached from the exploration is that in the aggregate Government financial support for education is adequate by some standards, but not by others. Total government spending for education in Thailand is comparable to other countries in the region, and is not low in terms of wider international comparisons. Financial allocations among levels of education and across various types of expenditure are largely sound in terms of international comparisons and financial criteria. There are, however, a number of problem areas identified in the analysis. These include high levels of subsidies to higher education relative to primary and secondary, and some disparities in the allocation of resources across provinces and regions. Plans and current policy initiative also indicate that there is wide dissatisfaction with the heavy reliance on the central government as the primary source and allocation mechanism for educational finances. Therefore new decentralization policies and financial autonomy may have major impacts on financial allocations. 50
Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA Education Management and Finance Study July 1999 2.2.1. Adequacy of allocations to the education sector 2.2.1.1. Education as a share of GDP a. The level of overall spending on education has been a relatively high proportion of the Government budget and of the overall level of economic activity as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The pattern for the education share of the Government budget over the past 20 years is shown in Figure 9 below. Some substantial fluctuations in the education share of the budget are evident in this record. There appear to be three distinctive periods over this time span. The 1978-85 period shows a very stable percentage at roughly 20%. The period 1985-1990 shows a drop in the education share, down to less than 17 per cent in 1989. From 1991 to 1996 the share returns to a fairly stable 20 per cent for six years. This is followed by a sharp upturn in 1997 and 1998. Over this time span Thailand’s education share of the national budget has been equal to or above other Asian countries. But these fluctuations are large enough to require further attention. Figure 9 - Education as a per cent of the national budget, 1978-97 Trends in the Thai Education Budget and GDP % of GDP 4.5% 4.0% 3.5% 3.0% 2.5% 2.0% 1.5% 1.0% 0.5% 0.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% % Change in GDP 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 Ed. Budget as % GDP % Change in GDP b. When the share of education as a proportion of GDP is examined over the same time period, possible causes for the shifts in the education share are evident. In Figure 10 (below) education expenditures as a per cent of GDP are plotted along with changes in the GDP. When viewed on the same plot, the two time series show clear counter-cyclical changes; when one goes up, the other goes down. One way to interpret this pattern is that education represents such a large and important proportion of the budget, involving so many people and institutions, that it can be changed only slowly. Therefore in time of slowing economic growth, say 1980-85, the overall Government budget may shrink, but 51
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- Volume II/3 - Educational Finance
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Table of Contents A. Executive Summ
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Table of Tables Table 1 Adjustments
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Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony.
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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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