Educational Finance in Thailand - UNESCO Bangkok

Final Report, Volume II/3 Anthony. Cresswell: Educational Finance UNESCO-PROAP TA 2996-THA
Education Management and Finance Study July 1999
resources are developed and maintained, they will provide a sound base for
continued improvement in the overall information environment.
c. Maintaining skilled technical and professional personnel in the information
technology field is not a simple task for government. The demand for these skills
and abilities is quite high in the private sector, resulting in wage rates generally
well above government levels. This can lead to a “brain drain” of IT staff from
government agencies that makes it difficult to maintain and develop information
systems and resources. A compensation and recruitment policy to address this
problem is a necessary part of any information systems plan.
d. Some areas of the education system are demonstrating a capacity to put these
information resources to use in policy and management-related analysis. Simply
collecting and processing large volumes of information is of little use in guiding a
complex system of education. Sophisticated techniques are required to analyze
and present results in ways that speak to critical issues and plans. Evidence of the
capacity to perform these tasks is found in publications of the Office of the
National Education Commission (ONEC), for example, on Educational Finance
and on educational indicators bring together information from many sources to
yield analyses for major policy and management issues. In addition, the Ministry
of Education has recently developed the information base to participate in an
OECD pilot project. This project supports new countries contributing data to the
OECD Indicators publications, providing more valuable analyses for tracking and
comparing educational systems and developments. These products illustrate the
conceptual and management capacity in place to make good use of available
information resources.
2.6.2. Problems in the information environment
a. Making full use of available information for educational finance requires the
capacity to select, integrate, analyze, and interpret effectively. This capacity is not
well developed in the information environment for educational finance. In order
for policy makers and managers to build this capacity to a desirable level, it will
be necessary to overcome some substantial problems in the organizational and
technical environment in which finance information is produced and used. This
section describes these problems as a background for recommendations for
development strategies.
b. The principal problem interfering with full and effective use of finance
information is what is usually called a “stovepipe” approach to information
resources. The term refers to the long pipe often used to vent smoke from a stove,
passing up through the ceiling. Each stove has it’s own pipe. Smoke doesn’t mix
across pipes, and the only view in a stovepipe is straight up or straight down. This
image accurately describes the movement of information, financial and otherwise,
in the educational system. The Ministries and Departments within Ministries
maintain their own information flows down to the lower levels, and up from them
in separate “pipes.” The information in one pipe does not mix with that from any
other, and what the information tells the analyst or interpreter applies only to what
happens up and down that pipe. In this kind of system, bringing information
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