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Current Educational Development
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The current development of education in Thailand is presented here in terms of quantitative development and quality and efficiency of education.
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7.1 Quantitative Development
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Before the economic downturn in Thailand, the provision of education was quantitatively expanded on a large scale, with the highest amount of educational budget up to 214,297 million Baht or 4.4 percent of GDP in 1997. Despite the reduced budget for education in the fiscal year 1998, efforts have been made to support the continued quantitative expansion as well as qualitative improvement of education. Current quantitative development of education can be summarized as follows.
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A. Expansion of Educational Opportunities
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Greater educational opportunities have been continuously provided at all levels in order to raise the quality of the people. In 1997, more population in 3-21 age-group had access to formal education. The student enrolment at all levels of education increased from 12.4 million or 57.5 percent of the school-age population in 1994 to 13.8 million or 65.4 percent in 1997. The total enrolment ratio in 1997 can be illustrated by the pyramid of education on Chart 7.1.
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Chart 7.1 Pyramid of Education : Academic Year 1997
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