The 10th High-Level Group Meeting on Education for All (EFA) is now taking place at Royal Cliff Beach Resorts in Chon Buri under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). As one of the countries committed to achieving the EFA goals by 2015, Thailand has made several progresses in the six EFA targets.
Firstly, for early childhood care and education, its gross enrolment ratio (GER) had been increasing from 42% in 1990 to 87% in 2000. The rate then hit 96% in 2010, one of the highest in the region. In the second target for universal primary education, the net enrolment in primary education in 2006 stood at 93%; however, it was at 90% in 2009 with 586,000 out-of-school children.
Regarding life skills and lifelong learning in the third target, secondary education GER during 2005 to 2008 was at 98%. Youth literacy in Thailand is almost universal, but more efforts are needed to be done to further the expansion of secondary education. Moving to adult literacy rate in the fourth target, the rate from 2005 to 2008 stood at 94%, but Thailand still has 3.3 million adults who do not have basic skills to read and write, and 67% of them are women.
Regarding gender parity and equality in the fifth target, parity has been achieved in primary education with nearly equal ratio between boys and girls, but the data shows a trend of growing disadvantage of boys at the secondary level with 109 girls enrolled for every 100 boys.
Lastly, for the quality of education, the teacher: pupil ratio had reduced from 1:21 in 1999 to 1:16 in 2008. The ratio continues to be within the recommended levels, but there are still wide discrepancies in schools nationwide. Meanwhile, public expenditure on education fell from 28% of the total government expenditure in 1999 to 26% in 2008, but still one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
With strong commitments with the EFA, Thailand is trying its best to improve education quality and ensure equal access to education for all Thais and betterment of its people. As long as the efforts are made, realizing all the EFA targets in 2015 is achievable.
