Executive Summary
Thailand’s education system faces persistent and widening performance gaps across schools. While some schools consistently demonstrate strong student achievement on standardized assessments, others consistently lag behind. Research by the World Bank (2020)1 indicates that these disparities are largely driven by inequitable distribution of educational resources, with teaching staff and learning materials tending to be concentrated in higher-performing schools. Addressing these inequities requires accurate and frequent data collection. Evidence from other countries, particularly Vietnam,2 demonstrates that with better data, policymakers can allocate resources more effectively to where they are needed – and thereby help reduce these gaps.
What is FSQL?
At the request of the Equitable Education Fund (EEF), the Fundamental School Quality Level (FSQL) Standards was developed by the World Bank (2020) as a comprehensive tool for evaluating educational quality in basic education schools. The instrument draws on international experience, country-specific norms, empirical research findings from Thailand, and common minimum standards requirements observed across various countries. Unlike existing assessment tools, FSQL is designed to provide systematic, evidence-based assessments of school quality that can directly inform resource allocation decisions.
The FSQL instrument assesses schools across multiple dimensions, including school leadership, teaching quality, and infrastructure. A unique feature is its integration with a comprehensive costing framework that enables systematic planning and budgeting for facility improvements. This practical linkage between assessment and resource needs represents a significant advance in education quality monitoring.
Why is FSQL needed?
As specified in the National Education Act (1999), the Office of the Education Council (OEC) is responsible for formulating national education standards in cooperation with the offices responsible for basic, vocational, and higher education. The national education standards serve as the basis for setting assessment standards for internal and external quality assurance mechanisms. A continuous process of internal quality assurance was instituted as part of education administration.
The Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA), a public organization, was established in 2000 in accordance with Chapter 6 of the National Education Act (1999) and Amendment (Second National Education Act, 2002). ONESQA has been tasked with overseeing external quality evaluations of educational institutions, which should occur at least once every five years (Office of the Education Council, 2018).
However, ONESQA’s “amicable assessment” approach, which emphasizes support for improvement rather than high-stakes accountability, has faced mounting criticism. The results generated do not appear to be used to inform performance discussions among any actors in the system, nor do they seem to be part of any budget discussion with the Ministry of Finance (e.g., justifying more/less spending, changes in spending, or new programs).
The disconnect between ONESQA assessments and actual school performance is striking. During 2023 (part of the fifth round covering the 2021-2025 period), ONESQA conducted external quality assessment on 7,970 basic education schools. In their published 2023 Annual Report, remarkably between 99.86-99.96 percent of the schools assessed obtained the result of “Good” or higher while 0.04-0.14 percent obtained the result of “Need improvement” across the three domains assessed (Quality of students, School-based management, and Student-centric learning management). These results conflict sharply with student assessment results from the latest PISA 2022, where around 46 percent of Thai 15-year-old students were “functionally illiterate/innumerate,” that is, their proficiency levels in all three test domains were below the basic levels. Furthermore, PISA scores across the three subjects (math, reading and science) have been on a declining trend over the last decade. This pattern of disconnect is not new. While student performance was declining, the number of schools that passed the assessment increased dramatically from the first (2001-2005) to the second round (2006-2010) of the external quality assessment (TDRI, 2012).
Moreover, key summary statistics of national-level results from the assessments such as the distribution of scores for each standard across geographic areas of the country, or the score differences between large and small or urban and rural schools are not readily available from ONESQA website. This severely limits the ability of key stakeholders to monitor and evaluate schools effectively.
Recognizing these shortcomings, the Fundamental School Quality Level Standards for Thailand was proposed as an instrument for filling in these gaps. As will be shown in this study, the data generated by the instrument are able to more precisely inform stakeholders and policymakers on school quality and where additional resources should be allocated to raise student performance and reduce learning outcome inequality between schools.
How was FSQL developed and tested?
The FSQL tool has evolved through multiple stages of development and validation. The first version underwent extensive review between November 2020 and May 2022, including four rounds of focus group consultations with educational experts, policymakers, and academics in Thailand. It was then piloted in 275 schools participating in The Kru Rak Thin (KRT) Project.3 While this initial pilot showed promise, it also revealed important limitations. Of particular concern was potential self-evaluation bias in teaching quality assessment, a crucial area given teaching quality’s established importance for student learning. Additionally, the infrastructure assessment needed greater depth and practical guidance for improvements.The second-stage pilot introduced substantial revisions to address these limitations:
1.Teaching Quality Assessment:
•Replaced self-reporting with direct classroom observations
•Trained external enumerators to ensure objective evaluation
•Developed detailed observation protocols and scoring rubrics
2.Infrastructure Evaluation:
•Expanded assessment criteria for comprehensive facility evaluation
•Strengthened evidence requirements for scoring
•Integrated with a detailed costing frameworkThe infrastructure costing framework, detailed in the accompanying report “Thailand: Fundamental School Quality Level (FSQL) Instrument Costing Framework for Standard 4 on School Infrastructure, Service Facilities, and Learning Materials,” represents a major innovation. It provides standardized evaluation criteria and detailed implementation guidelines, enabling schools and authorities to systematically assess infrastructure needs and estimate required resources for improvements.
Does the FSQL work?
Our validation study of the revised instrument yielded several key findings that strongly support its effectiveness:
First, the FSQL tool demonstrates strong predictive validity. The information collected correlates significantly with student learning outcomes, confirming that the instrument measures aspects of school quality that matter for student achievement. The relationships remain robust even after controlling for student socioeconomic background, suggesting the tool captures meaningful quality differences between schools.
Second, schools show consistent response patterns across related items, indicating effective training and clear assessment criteria. This internal consistency is particularly important given the comprehensive nature of the assessment, which covers multiple aspects of school quality from leadership practices to infrastructure conditions.
Third, the tool successfully identifies systematic patterns of educational inequality. Our cluster analysis revealed distinct groups of schools with varying quality levels. Disadvantaged schools, characterized by consistently lower scores across all quality measures, tend to be significantly smaller (average enrollment of 110 students compared to 354 in advantaged schools) and serve higher proportions of poor students (16.4 vs 13.2 percent in advantaged schools). This pattern highlights the tool’s utility for identifying schools needing additional support.
Fourth, and perhaps most significantly, our analysis revealed the fundamental importance of school leadership quality. While both teaching quality and infrastructure showed significant associations with student learning outcomes when considered alone, the inclusion of leadership quality measures dramatically improved predictive power. This suggests that effective school leadership may be a key underlying driver of both teaching quality and infrastructure management.
Fifth, the integration of the infrastructure costing framework provides a practical pathway from assessment to improvement. This framework enables systematic planning and budgeting for facility upgrades, ensuring that infrastructure investments are both targeted and cost-effective. The framework builds upon the FSQL standards with particular focus on infrastructure, facilities, and accessibility, providing detailed guidelines for implementing improvements.
What key questions need to be addressed?
Before nationwide implementation, several critical questions require careful consideration:
Implementation Complexity:
•While the revised instrument provides more thorough and objective measurements, it requires greater investment of time and resources
•Schools must collect substantial evidence for their assessments
•Classroom observations require trained external evaluators
•Infrastructure assessments, while necessary for the costing framework, are particularly demanding
Resource Requirements:•Sustained funding needed for training and support
•Development of verification processes for school-reported data
•Integration with existing monitoring systems
•Resources for implementing the costing framework recommendations
Policy Decisions:
•Determining the minimum essential information all schools must provide
•Establishing how the ministry will use FSQL data for resource allocation
•Deciding whether results should be public for accountability
•Integrating FSQL with existing quality assurance frameworks
Despite these implementation challenges, our findings suggest that the FSQL instrument has strong potential as a tool for monitoring and improving school quality in Thailand. Its ability to identify meaningful patterns of school quality, predict student learning outcomes, and guide infrastructure investments through its costing framework makes it valuable for policymakers seeking to address educational inequities through evidence-based resource allocation decisions.
The instrument’s comprehensive approach – combining leadership assessment, objective teaching quality measures, and detailed infrastructure evaluation with practical costing guidance – provides a foundation for systematic school improvement. While successful nationwide implementation will require significant commitment and resources, the potential benefits for educational equity and quality suggest this investment would be worthwhile.
