Education in Thailand

Education in Thailand is provided mainly by the Thai government through the Ministry of Education from pre-school to senior high school. A free basic education to fifteen years is guaranteed by the Thai constitution. This basic education comprises six years of elementary school and three years of lower secondary school. In addition, three years of pre-school and three years of upper-secondary education is available free of charge, but are non-compulsory.

Children aged 6–12 will go to elementary school (prathom (Thai: ประถม)). From the age of 12, they attend secondary school (matthayom (Thai: มัธยม)). While secondary school also lasts six years, only the first three years are mandatory. After grade 9 (Matthayom 3), pupils can pursue upper-secondary education in a university-preparatory track, or continue their studies in vocational school programs.

Homeschooling is legal in Thailand. Thailand's constitution and education law explicitly recognize alternative education and considers the family to be an educational institution. A homeschool law passed in 2004, Ministerial Regulation No. 3 on the right to basic education by the family, governs homeschooling. Families must submit an application to homeschool and students are assessed annually.

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that Thailand fulfills 69.5% of what they should be able to fulfill for the right to education, based on their level of income.

School system overview

Basic education in Thailand is divided into three levels: pre-primary, primary, and secondary. Pre-primary education was introduced in 2004 and made free in 2009. State schools offer two years of kindergarten (Thai: อนุบาล; RTGS: anuban) (three- and four-year-old) and one year of pre-school studies (five-year-old). Participation in pre-primary education is "nearly universal". At the age of six, education begins. It lasts for nine years, consisting of primary, prathom (Thai: ประถม) (grades P1-6), and lower secondary, matthayom ton (Thai: มัธยมต้น) (grades M1-3), starting at the age of 12. Upper secondary education, "matthayom plai" (Thai: มัธยมปลาย) grades M4-6, is also not compulsory. It is divided into general and vocational tracks.

Ninety-nine per cent of students complete primary education. Only 85 per cent complete lower secondary. About 75 per cent move on to upper secondary (ages 16–18). For every 100 students in primary schools, 85.6 students will continue studies in M1, 79.6 students will continue until M3, and only 54.8 will go on to M6 or occupational schools.

There are academic upper secondary schools, vocational upper secondary schools, and comprehensive schools offering academic and vocational tracks. Students who choose the academic stream usually intend to enter a university. Vocational schools offer programs that prepare students for employment or further studies.

Admission to an upper secondary school is through an entrance exam. On the completion of each level, students need to pass the NET (National Educational Test) to graduate. Children are required to attend six years of elementary school and at least the first three years of high school. Those who graduate from the sixth year of high school are candidates for two tests: O-NET (Ordinary National Educational Test) and A-NET (Advanced National Educational Test).

Public schools are administered by the government. The private sector includes schools run for profit and fee-paying non-profit schools which are often run by charitable organisations — especially by Catholic diocesan and religious orders that operate over 143 large elementary/secondary schools throughout the country. Village and sub-district schools usually provide pre-school kindergarten and elementary classes, while in the district towns, schools will serve their areas with comprehensive schools with all the classes from kindergarten to age 15 and separate secondary schools for ages 13 through 18.

Due to budgetary limitations, rural schools are generally less well equipped than the schools in the cities. The standard of instruction, particularly for the English language, is much lower, and many high school students will commute 60–80 kilometres to schools in the nearest city.

The school year is divided into two semesters. Usually Schools start their academic terms midway through the year. For Public Schools the first semester begins in mid May and ends around late September or early October; the second begins around late October or early November and ends around late February or early March. There are approximately 12 weeks of holiday per academic year. For Private Schools the first semester starts in August and ends in December. The second term starts in January and ends in July. Some International Schools follow English school holidays (Usually August to July, but divided over three terms).

History

Formal education has its early origins in the temple schools, when it was available to boys only. From the mid-sixteenth century Thailand opened up to significant French Catholic influence until the mid-seventeenth century when it was heavily curtailed, and the country returned to a strengthening of its own cultural ideology. Unlike other parts of South and Southeast Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia and the Philippines, Thailand has never been colonised by a Western power. As a result, structured education on the lines of that in developed countries gained new impetus with the reemergence of diplomacy in the late nineteenth century.

Early education

It is possible that one of the earliest forms of education began when King Ramkhamhaeng the Great invented the Thai alphabet in 1283 basing it on Mon, Khmer, and southern Indian scripts. Stone inscriptions from 1292 in the new script depict moral, intellectual and cultural aspects. During the Sukhothai period (1238–1378), education was dispensed by the Royal Institution of Instruction (Rajabundit) to members of the royal family and the nobility, while commoners were taught by Buddhist monks.

In the period of the Ayutthaya kingdom from 1350 to 1767 during the reign of King Narai the Great (1656–1688), the Chindamani, generally accepted as the first textbook of the Thai language, collating the grammar. The prosody of Thai language and official forms of correspondence was written by a royal astrologer named Pra Horatibodi, in order to stem the foreign educational influence of the French Jesuit schools It remained in use up to King Chulalongkorn's reign (1868–1910). Narai himself was a poet, and his court became the center where poets congregated to compose verses and poems. Although through his influence interest in Thai literature was significantly increased, Catholic missions had been present with education in Ayutthaya as early as 1567 under Portuguese Dominicans and French Jesuits were given permission to settle in Ayutthaya in 1662. His reign therefore saw major developments in diplomatic missions to and from Western powers.

On Narai's death, fearing further foreign interference in Thai education and culture, and conversion to Catholicism, xenophobic sentiments at court increased and diplomatic activities were severely reduced and ties with the West and any forms of Western education were practically severed. They did not recover their former levels until the reign of King Mongkut in the mid-nineteenth century.

Development

Through his reforms of the Buddhist Sangha, King Rama I (1782–1809), accelerated the development of public education and during the reign of King Rama IV (1851–1865) the printing press arrived in Thailand making books available in the Thai language for the first time; English had become the lingua franca of the Far East, and the education provided by the monks was proving inadequate for government officials. Rama IV decreed that measures be taken to modernise education and insisted that English would be included in the curriculum.

King Rama V (1868–1910) continued to influence the development of education and in 1871 the first relatively modern concept of a school with purpose constructed building, lay teachers and a time-table was opened in the palace to teach male members of the royal family and the sons of the nobility. The Command Declaration on Schooling was proclaimed, English was being taught in the palace for royalty and nobles, and schools were set up outside the palace for the education of commoners’ children. With the aid of foreign - mainly English - advisers a Department of Education was established by the king in 1887 by which time 34 schools, with over 80 teachers and almost 2,000 students, were in operation and as part of the king’s programme to establish ministries, in 1892 the department became the Ministry of Education. Recognizing that the private sector had come to share the tasks of providing education, the government introduced controls for private schools.