The assessment of basic education for all aims at studying the progress of the provision of national basic education from a perspective point of view of the country and of each education region, using UNESCO core indicators in data analysis. This chapter will present the following issues:

• definition of the 18 core indicators
• methodology and steps of data collection
• scope of data collection

At the 1990 World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien, Thailand, a joint committee was adopted by member countries to provide basic education for the people as prescribed in the Declaration. To monitor the outcome of the implementation, each country was asked to conduct its own monitoring, the process of which can be consistent with the situation of each country. In order to steer the assessment towards the same direction, the International Consultative Forum on Education For All has established 18 core indicators, classified in 4 groups: early childhood care and development, primary education, learning achievement and outcomes, and adult literacy as follows:

Indicator 1: Gross enrolment in early childhood development programmes, including public, private, and community programmes, expressed as a percentage of the official age-group concerned, if any, otherwise the age-group 3 to 5.

Indicator 2: Percentage of new entrants to primary grade 1 who have attended some form of organized early childhood development programme.

Indicator 3: Apparent (gross) intake rate: new entrants in primary grade 1 as a percentage of the population of official entry age.

Indicator 4: Net intake rate: new entrants to primary grade 1 who are of the official primary school-entrance age as a percentage of the corresponding population.

(Remarks: Indicators 2,3 and 4 students in grade 1 are used instead of new entrants )

Indicator 5: Gross enrolment ratio.

Indicator 6: Net enrolment ratio.

Indicator 7: Public current expenditure on primary education a) as a percentage of GNP; and b) per pupil as a percentage of GNP per capita.

Indicator 8: Public expenditure on primary education as a percentage of total public expenditure on education.

Indicator 9: Percentage of primary school teachers having the required academic qualification.

Indicator 10: Percentage of primary school teachers who are certified to teach according to national standards.

(Remarks: Since Thailand does not have a teacher license, it is not possible to classify exact number of teachers as identified in indicators 9 and 10. Therefore, in the assessment, teachers are classified into those obtain a Bachelor’s Degree and higher and those complete lower than undergraduate level)

Indicator 11: Pupil-teacher ratio

Indicator 12: Repetition rates by grade.

Indicator 13: Survival rate to grade 5 (percentage of a pupil cohort actually reaching grade 5)

(Remarks: the figure includes the number of students who enrolled in that year and survive until grade 6 in the next six years)

Indicator 14: Coefficient of efficiency (ideal number of pupil years needed for a cohort to complete the primary cycle, expressed as a percentage of the actual number of pupil-years).

(Remarks: The concept of cohort analysis was introduced in indicators 12-14)

1.3 Learning Achievement and Outcomes

Indicator 15: Percentage of pupils having reached at least grade 4 of primary schooling who master a set of nationally defined basic learning competencies.

Indicator 16: Literacy rate of 15-24 year olds.

Indicator 17: Adult literacy rate: percentage of the population aged 15+ that is literate.

Indicator 18: Literacy Gender Parity Index: ratio of female to male literacy rates.

This portion is related to sources of data and method of data collection.

Sources of data in the assessment are mainly from secondary sources. For quantitative data on number of students, the figures are based on the report of the Regional Offices.

In order to enhance the accuracy and full coverage in all provinces, the process of data collection is divided into three stages.

1. Study of the general guidelines and technical guidelines of the assessment distributed by EFA Forum Secretariat.
2. The Ministry of Education appointed an EFA national assessment group, a technical sub-group, and a national coordinator.
3. The group convened meetings to set up guidelines and plan of action for Thailand and set up a secretariat to assist in data collection for the national EFA 2000 assessment of Thailand

Preliminary Assessment Report:

1. Organizing workshops to disseminate the guidelines for EFA assessment and interpret the core indicators.
2. Identifying target groups and the method of data collection, coordinating with concerned agencies and collecting data.
3. Organizing meetings to prepare draft of the national EFA 2000 assessment.
4. Organizing meetings to disseminate guidelines for EFA assessment at the regional level.
5. The Regional Education Offices individualy carry out the assessment.
6. Submission of the results of the assessment to the EFA Sub-regional Forum.

The national EFA assessment of Thailand consists 9 goals. In this regard, the assessment of Thailand integrated these goals into the 18 core indicators. At the same time, the report also identified the results of the assessment at the upper secondary education level since the 1997 Constitution stipulates people shall enjoy their rights to education which shall be provided by the government at least twelve years with quality and free of charge. Therefore, basic education in Thailand covers from primary to upper secondary levels. The presentation of the results of the assessment is divided into quantity and quality. The scope of the assessment were based on the available data as follows:

1. The number of population classified by age was based on the source from the Office of the National Education Commission which had been analyzed the data classified by age and province.
2. The quantitative data was based on the secondary sources of statistics classified by province several years ago.
3. The analysis of quantitative data was undertaken only in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1998.

Family is the smallest and most important social unit with high impact on social units. It is the first place where children are trained and are formed their behaviors. At present, directly and indirectly, the parents and guardians must learn about childhood development from various sources, for instance, radio or television programmes, newspapers columns and other printed materials. It is also found that data and indicators have shown a serious problem that about 400,000 of children at the age group of 0-5, or 6% are malnourished.

Government agencies and private sector have placed an importance to the family and child care. Hence, policies, plans, programmes and activities have been set up to provide continuing education on family and child care. Some of these are:

Since the 5th National Economic and Social Development Plan (1982 -1986), the government has increasingly given high importance to the family and attempted to develop the mind, the family and child care. The development aimed to enable the family to perform its duty, capable of producing quality members imbued with good values and morality for society. As for spiritual, cultural and social development, the 7th Plan (1993-1996) stated the following goal: "to build up a secure family, capable of playing an important role in developing man and participating in the prevention and solution of social problems". In order to build up a secure family, "the study about family shall be included in the curriculum at all levels of formal and non-formal education". At primary education level, contents on experiences that can be applied by students on their everyday life have been included in subjects on life experiences, (students learn about the relationships of family members, their duties and responsibilities, changes of the body and the mind, etc.), character development ( activities in a happy family, role playing of family members), work and basic knowledge on work (for instance: housework, cooking, house care, clothing, help in child care, etc.).

Lower primary education aimed at enabling the learners to know about the development of the quality of life, awareness of their roles and duties, knowledge on family financial status, mental changes, hereditary, personality development, health, and prevention of diseases.

The 8^th National Economic and Social Development Plan (1997-2001), has given high priority to the strengthening of the family and community including the opportunity development for human, family and community to enable them to efficiently participate in all aspects of the country’s development. Some of the activities in this respect are the reform of teaching-learning process to develop learning process of the family and community members. Communities are encouraged to have more participation in the management of education at all levels, improvement of curricurum and teaching materials in consistency with the community lifestyle and environments. Furthermore, teacher development is also emphasized in order to enable them to transfer such knowledge and understandings to their students on a

wider basis.

The policy on the development of 0-6 years old children during the 7^th Health Development Plan (1992-1996) focused on the development of the quality of mother and child lives during the 3 crucial periods, namely, pre-marital and pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and post-natal, infancy and early childhood. A child’s development depends on his/her physical health while in the womb of his/her mother. The policy of the 7^th Plan therefore covers the time of conception to its full integration, as follows:

1. Family Planning Policy. Each family should have 2 children at the

maximum with at least three years of interval. The mother should be over twenty years old when she has the first child.

2. Maternal Health Policy. The policy encourages the promotion of

proper care for pregnant women during pregnancy as well as safe delivery and postpartum care.

3. Child Health Policy. It aims to promote exclusive breast-feeding

for at least 4 months and breast-feeding with supplementary feeding until age 1.

The ultimate goal of the plan is that every Thai child will survive with good health, in terms of physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual.

The health promotion plan as contained in the health development plan during the 8th National Economic and Social Development Plan ( 1997-2001) has established a scheme to promote age-specific health: mother and child health promotion, promotion of health in school-age children and youth, working age and the old-age groups.

The promotion of mother and child health has the following objectives

to reduce morbidity and mortality rates of the mothers

to reduce morbidity, disability and mortality rates among children aged 0-5

to reduce prevalence of hereditary abnormality diseases.

to provide standardized health beviours among parents

to provide appropriate health service to the mother and child

to provide proper child care so that the child will be healthy and meet with developmental stages in terms of physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional aspects.

to encourage family and community participation in child care.

The promotion of health in school-age children and youth aims at providing health development through the promotion and prevention of health development to enable the children in this group to be healthy and meet with developmental stages in terms of physical, mental, and intellectual aspects.

At the Inter-country Consultation of Health-Promoting Schools held in December 1997 in Thailand, recommendations and guidelines for implementation of health-promoting schools were proposed and agreed upon, including the setting up of national and regional network.

In Thailand, the Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health, has formulated the strategies for public health development. As for the implementation, the Ministry of Public Health has coordinated with concerned agencies, for instance, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Interior by setting up a Committee on Schools for Health Promotion. The Committee has set up the goal that all schools will be included in the project with six main features as follow:

1. Encourage and promote health and education personnel, teachers, students, parents, community leaders to actively participate in health promotion together with families and school-related groups and organizations in the community.
2. Attempt to provide healthy and security environments.
3. Arrange courses in health education with an emphasis on the improvement of knowledge and understanding on health and healthy habits.
4. Provide access to health service through the provision of services on physical check-up, diagnosis, surveillance on developmental stages, immunization, depending on resources and regulations of the school.
5. Carry out the programme action according to the policy and practice in health promotion.
6. Attempt to improve health in the community.

A summary of the evaluation of mother and child health in 1994 (Evaluation and Analysis Unit, Family Health Division, Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health) shows a summary of the evaluation as follows:

• Pre-natal Care for Mothers. It was found that 532,922 mothers attended all of the pre-natal care services (4 times) offered by health officials. This number represented 67.01 % of the total number of the mothers, which was lower than the target (75%).
• Child Delivery by Health Personnel and Trained Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA). 702,230 children or 88.31% of the total delivery were undertaken by both public and private health personnel and traditional birth attendants. This is higher than the target (80%).
• Post-delivery Care for Mother and Child (3 visits). 476,680 mothers fully received this service, accounting for 59.94% of the total birth. This is lower than the target (70%).
• Weight of New-born Babies (lower than 2,500 grams.). A number of 55,618 babies or 8.34% of all births were born with weight under 2,500 grams. The 7^th National Economic and Social Plan stipulated that the rate must not be higher than 7%. Therefore, the target was not been achieved.
• Model Mothers. It was found that, of the 2,169,575 mothers aged 21-35, a number of 415,305 mothers were qualified as model mothers, which was 19.14%.
• Motality Rate of Mother, Baby, Child under five years old. Mother mortality rate was 0.16 per 1,000 survival new-born; infant mortality rate was 6.19 per 1,000 per survival new-born. However, registration of infant death was still inaccurate, making the reported rate lower than the actual rate. It can be assumed that the present infant mortality rate is about 28.5 per 1,000 per survival new-born. Mortality rate of children under five years old is 41.27 per 1,000 per survival children.

The report by the Department of Community Development, Ministry of Interior, on the Thai people’s quality of life, from the data on basic necessities collected since 1994, shows some related information as follows:

• Pre-natal care for mothers/pregnant women. The public was paying more attention to this issue. During the years 1994-1998, the percentage of pregnant women receiving care was 97.4, 97.2, 98.0, 98.3 and 98.8 % respectively.
• Surveillance and Provision of Proper Nutrition to Children 0-5. In 1997, the achievement was about 16.1 % higher than the target (80%).
• Immunization for Infant under One Year Old. It aimed to provide all required periodical immunization to this group of children. In 1994, the services were covered 4.3% higher than the target (95%).
• Child Care (0-5 years old). The 1997 survey showed that, of the 6.4 million of 0-5 year-old children (10.6% of the total population), the majority (78.6%) were brought up by parents; 16.2% by grandparents from the same or different household; 1.6% by relatives in the same household and 1.4% in child care centres or nurseries.

Development of human requires active cooperation from all parties and has to be undertaken on a lifelong basis. From this perspective, child development should be emphasized since the conception to pre-school years (1-5 years old). A 0-2 year-old-child should be closely looked after by the family. A 3-5 year-old-child starts to enter pre-primary education level, the first level of education in which a firm foundation must be laid down for him/her to allow for the growth and development in various aspects: physical, mental, emotional, personality and social. He/she should then be prepared to enroll into a primary school and learn to grow up as a good citizen of the country.

This level of education aims to provide care services and readiness for children in various aspects, namely, physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, personal and social. It is divided into a 2-year or 3-year nursery and 1-year pre-primary. Child development centres are also established as non-formal schooling system which come in various types.

Formal education at this level had been expanded during 1990-1998. In 1998, 2,152,192 young children enrolled in this level of education, representing 68.64% of the 3-5 year-old age children, more than double of that in 1990. In 1990, only 1,158,521 or 35.33% of 3-5 year-old children enrolled in pre-primary education. The ratio of public: private schools was 70:30 to 75:24. There is no remarkable difference in terms of the gender. (Details are in the table)

Table showing pre-primary pupils in formal schooling expressed as a percentage of population aged 3-5 and the proportion of pupils in public schools to those in private schools, by academic year:

There is an increase of the number of children enrolling in this level of education when all types of schools and centres, both formal and non-formal, are included. (Details are in the table)

Table showing pupils in formal and non-formal schooling expressed as a percentage of population aged 3-5 by academic year:

4.1.3 Primary education

Primary education is compulsory as prescribed in the 1980 Primary Education Act. Parents or guardian of children entering their eighth year of age must enroll their children into a school until they are fifteen years of age, or they have passed primary grade 6 examination according to the curriculum prescribed in Section 5.

In enrolling a child to a school as in paragraph 1, the child shall not be absent from class for more than seven days of a month’s attendance. The provincial primary education committee may allow the parents in any particular area to enroll their children in a primary school at the age lower or higher than that prescribed in paragraph 1 where appropriate. The age is counted according to the calendar year.

The 1977 National Education Scheme stipulated that the age of a child for the commencement of primary education depends on each community according to local conditions and readiness of children in such community. However, children shall not be forced to enroll into school before the age of six and not later than the full age of eight. The 5^th National Economic and Social Development Plan stressed the quantitative aspect of education, that primary education provided must cover school-age population. Since the 6^th Plan, there has been a clear-cut line in the policy, measures and goals of education. The goal is to provide compulsory education (primary grade 1 - primary grade 6) to cover every child of compulsory education age.

The Office of Primary Education Commission is the core agency, with the cooperation of other agencies in and outside the Ministry of Education, to provide the service of this level of education to the population in the target groups.

The outcome of the management of primary education will be presented in 5 parts:

1. Gross intake rate.
2. Net intake rate.
3. The ratio of primary grade 1 pupils attended early childhood care service.
4. Primary education ratio.
5. Efficiency of the management of primary education.

The number of primary grade 1 pupils from 1990 to 1997 remains rather constant, that is, about 1.1 million. In 1990, there were 1,153,149 primary grade 1 pupils or about 101.57% of the population aged 6. In 1992 and 1994, there was a slight decrease in the number: 1,109,019 primary grade 1 pupils in 1992, representing 99.88% and 1,050,811 in 1994 representing 96.41%. However, there was a slight increase in 1996 and 1998: 1,102,425 students (102.68%) in 1996 and 1,109,812 students (103.79%) in 1998.

The ratio of public and private primary schools is approximately 85:15 to 87:13. Regarding gender issue, boys have a slightly greater opportunity to enroll in school than girls with equal opportunity in the range of 0.96 to 0.99% (see Annex A. Table 3).

Table showing percentage of primary grade 1 pupils compared to the children aged 6, classified by school year:

If we compare primary grade 1 pupils to exactly 6 years of age to population aged 6 years to study the net intake rate, it is found that in 1992,the net intake rate of Primary 1 is 23.86% increasing to 37.14% in 1998.

Table showing net enrolment ratio in primary grade 1, classified by academic year:

* with the exception of Bangkok.

The estimation of the new entrants in primary grade 1 who have attended early childhood care services increased. In 1990, there was 70.71% but rose to 94% in 1998. (see Annex A. Table 2)

Table showing percentage of primary grade 1 pupils attended early childhood care services, classified by academic year:

The gross enrolment ratio in primary schools (percentage of primary grades 1-6 students per population aged 6-11) during 1990-1998 showed a fluctuation between 89.16% to 94.18%. The gross enrollment rate for primary education in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998 was: 93.49%, 90.75%, 94.18%, 89.16%, and 91.32% respectively. The proportion between education provided by the public sector and that provided by the private sector was somewhere between 87:13 and 90:10. The gap in gender equality in obtaining education was 0.97 to 0.98 percent. (see Annex A. Table 4)

Table showing total enrolment in primary education as a percentage of population aged 6-11 , classified by academic year:

The comparison between primary school students aged 6-11 and population aged 6-11 for the study of net enrolment ratio showed that net enrollment ratio (percentage of students aged 6-11 per population aged 6-11) increased, ranging from 70.15% in 1992 to 80.40% in 1998.

Table showing net enrolment ratio in primary education:

Four factors representing indicators on efficiency in the provision of education will be discussed here. They are: repetition, drop-out, retention and years spent for education. Specific data provided by the Office of the National Primary Education Commission is used as the major source of computation.

Condition: The study and presentation of data on the efficiency of primary education management is based on educational institutions under the jurisdiction of the Office of the National Primary Education Commission.

The rate of repetition of primary education (primary grade 1 -6) from 1990 to 1997 was 2.73 - 3.73%, the highest being in 1991 with 3.73% and the lowest in 1993 with 2.73%.

When looking closely at each class, the rate of the repetition of primary grade1 was higher than those of other grades. The rate of repetition of grade 6 was the lowest. (see Annex A. Table 7)

Table showing repetition rate of primary school students , classified by grade :

Another major problem faced by many institutions of learning is the rate of drop-outs before the students finish their education. This causes a great deal of education waste every year. If we estimate that annual expenses paid per one student for tuition fee, school equipment, stationery, books, uniforms, transportation, lunch and other expenses in connection with his study is about 6,541 baht (expenses computed in 1997 from children aged 3-24 years old still studying but excluding 3-24 years old children still studying but with no educational expenses). The data from the Office of National Primary Education Commission in 1998 showed that the number of drop-outs during that year was 31,294 representing a financial waste of more than 200 million baht. Any student who had to study in the same class for an additional year also added up to an increase in expenses. What should be immediately taken action is to reduce the drop-outs and to increase the retention of students up to 100% so as to enable the repetition to be zero and encourage them to stay in school until grade 6.

From 1990 to 1998, it was found that the percentage of students who remained until the end of grade 6 was 84.7%, 87.9%, 75.8%, and 93.5% in 1990/1991, 1992/1993, 1994/1995 and 1996/1997 respectively. The total average number of years spent till the end of grade 6 was 7.1, 6.8, 7.9 and 6.4 respectively.

Table showing the percentage of students who survive until the end of primary grade 6 and the average number of years :

Another factor contributing to the efficiency and the achievement of the management of education is the quality of the teachers. Although at present, Thailand has not yet demanded that teachers possess a license to teach, but in recruiting teachers especially in public schools, the rules set out by the Office of the Teacher Civil Service Commission must be complied with. Teacher civil servants must possess at least a Bachelor’s degree. Since 1990, the Teacher Civil Service Commission has stipulated that those applying for a competitive examination as teacher civil servants under the Office of the National Primary Education Commission in the first competitive examination 1990 must obtain a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent and must have taken up not less than 15 credits of teaching subjects in a bilateral system. Teaching subjects prescribed belong to the following 6 groups: 1) Principle and methodology of teaching and preparation of practical experiences ; 2) Educational psychology; 3) Educational technology and innovation; 4) Evaluation and formulation of tests; 5) Teaching methodology in general and specific examination methodology; and 6) Curriculum, basic education and ethics for teachers.

Teachers can be divided according to the academic qualifications into two groups. Group 1 are those with at least a Bachelor’s Degree and Group 2 are those with qualification lower than Bachelor’s Degree. During 1990-1998, the number of teachers with a Bachelor’s Degree increased from 175,811 or 62.32% of the total number of teachers in 1990 to 265,563 or 83.86% in 1998. While those with less than Bachelor’s Degree decreased , from 107,032 or 37.94 % in 1990 to 51,627 or 16.30% in 1998.

Table showing the number of teacher civil servants, classified by academic qualifications and academic year:

The ratio of pupils per 1 teacher is 21-22:1. In Bangkok, the ratio of pupil-teacher tends to be higher than that in othe provinces.

Table showing pupil-teacher ratio, classified by academic year: