The Bangkok Art and Culture Center’s Auditorium hosted the Equitable Education Fund’s (EEF) annual academic seminar, “Equity Forum 2023, Human Capital to End Inequality,” on October 25, 2023. The manager of the Equitable Education Fund (EEF), Dr. Kraiyos Patrawart, reported on the state of educational inequality in 2023.
According to the research, Thailand’s economy has not quite recovered from COVID-19. Additionally, inflation contributes to the worsening of the educational inequality problem. The average daily income of a household tends to decrease to 34 baht, which is 80 baht below the international poverty line.
Furthermore, Thailand is having trouble building its “human capital.” According to the most recent poll, the human capital of young people in the early working class is concerningly high. Early children have reduced listening skills. Young people who are not yet of working age have also lost their preparation for the workforce. Children from low-income families are thought to have lost between 30 and 50 percent of their skills over the previous two years. In order to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, The Equitable Education Fund (EEF) has offered recommendations for the creation of new policies and the reallocation of funding for education.
Dr. Kraiyos noted that following the COVID-19 crisis, the nation rebounded in a way known as the K-shape Recovery, typified by a growing disparity in wealth. Notably, the most severely affected are children and young people from low-income homes. It is due to the widespread issue of poverty and limited access to opportunities. As a result, the COVID-19 scenario is now contributing to the worsening of educational inequality. The problem will worsen if we do not provide these disadvantaged households’ children and youth with immediate assistance.
“Learning loss can be recovered from more easily by children from better-prepared families. Children who are cut off from the system or do not have access to options for rehabilitation will be the next generation of learners lost. As a result, the development of human capital today needs to adapt to the new environment. Consequently, we can’t let a single youngster leave the school system or fail to reach their full potential.
According to Dr. Kraiyos, there will be roughly 1.8 million impoverished and extremely impoverished kids in Thailand in the 2023 school year. The number of recipients of equal scholarships from the Equitable Education Fund has increased to 1,248,861 from 994,428 in 2020 when the number had not yet crossed the million mark. These recipients are particularly poor or extremely poor students. One of the main factors preventing children in this category from being able to afford the costs of their education and ultimately having to drop out of the system is extreme poverty.
The following conclusions are drawn from tracking data on students’ academic pathways from impoverished and ultra-poor households between 2019 and 2023:
1. This group of kids and young adults is more likely to continue their education the more educated they are. Merely 10% of impoverished and extremely impoverished students will be able to effectively pursue higher education in the 2023 academic year.
2. When kids and teens are most cut off from the system, the educational transition phase is thought to be crucial. This is due to the fact that changing schools during the semester necessitates bearing the weight of numerous charges, including application fees, travel expenses, and study preparation costs.
Students from low-income and extremely low-income families thus confront numerous challenges. Ultimately, regardless of their desire, they had to choose not to pursue their educational goals.
The survey also revealed that the price of a university education is 12 times the income of households who are extremely poor, or between 13,200 and 29,000 baht. Under in-depth interviews with extremely low-income students who pursued higher education under the TCAS system, the Equitable Education Fund has gathered data. Research has indicated that scholarships play a significant role in influencing students’ decisions to pursue further education. In the meanwhile, the TCAS system’s price is thought to be expensive for the income of really impoverished pupils. In a system like this, expenses go up with every application round for every branch. Concerns exist over the terms and constraints of the funding source for disbursements. Sometimes, students can’t afford to pay their tuition within the allotted time.
Dr. Kraiyos presented four policy recommendations for investing in human capital to ensure that children and youth have access to education after his talk on the inequality report. The development of human capital is equal. Having top-notch human capital is beneficial to the Thai economy and can propel the nation’s progress. The sustainable income increase of the Thai people will also provide the government with a larger tax base. Additionally, Thailand will be able to break the cycle of poverty that persists across generations and eventually achieve high-income levels.
The following are policy recommendations made by the Equitable Education Fund:
1. Investments in children and adolescents from the Invest Early program should be made, with an emphasis on early childhood development facilities as well as children and households, particularly those with young children living in poverty.
To concentrate on the human capital development process from conception to the bottom without permitting any zero waste, a system called the Closed-Loop Human Development Model should be implemented.
2. Investments must be made to effectively target the nation’s key groupings. Thailand needs to put money into developing a flexible alternative education system. This is an answer to the needs of the young people who, each year, graduate from basic and compulsory education programs and then quit the educational system.
3. equity investments should be made to prioritize the rights of children and youth to education, as well as to modify the financial and accounting terms of flexible funding sources.
4. Financial and fiscal innovation should be used to finance investments for the development of human capital (Invest Innovatively). The double tax deduction incentive is used to foster social and collaborative innovation to promote investments in human capital development in a fair and long-lasting way. Budgets for investments in human capital should be supported in an equitable and long-lasting way by quasi-fiscal policy. Additionally, funding from the financial and capital markets ought to be used to fund initiatives aimed at lowering educational disparities and making sustainable, fair investments in human capital.
