Description:
Education quality is crucial to
Thailand's future economic success. While lower-income
countries in East Asia are experiencing a bulge in their
youth population, Thailand's youth labor force is
expected to decline by 10 percent over the next decade. As a
result, the labor-intensive comparative advantage that
contributed significantly to Thailand's past economic
performance will diminish. This means that it is essential
for Thailand to develop the human capital of its declining
young work force to ensure the country's future
competitiveness and economic growth. Education is a
significant component of human capital development, the
economic benefits of which are firmly established in the
policy literature to have a positive effect on economic
growth. However, the success or failure of education in
terms of increasing productivity and growth depends
crucially on its quality. Thailand has participated in two
international student assessments to measure the quality of
education: Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD's) Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA) and the IEA's Trends in Mathematics
and Science Study (TIMSS). This study also supports policy
dialogue on improving accountability mechanisms for
publically funded private schools. The above findings reveal
that public schools outperform private schools even though
private schools receive public funding. The implication is
that the accountability mechanism for private schools that
receive public funding needs to be improved in order to
ensure that private schools are providing high quality
services. There are several international examples of strong
accountability mechanisms for publically funded private
schools. One example is the voucher scheme used in the
Netherlands. This provides schools with equal funding per
student with which schools have considerable freedom on how
to use this funding; however, they must meet specific
performance requirements.