The Equitable Education Research Institute (EEFI) and the Faculty of Education at Kasetsart University organized a workshop on September 20, 2024, to guarantee higher education opportunities for children and youth who lack financial resources, at the Asawin Grand Convention Hotel in Bangkok. The workshop’s theme was “Continuing Ideas, Passing on Hopes, and Weaving Dreams for Young People to Higher Education.” The workshop’s objectives were to collect feedback and offer recommendations for the accomplishment of tangible aid initiatives. Experts, scholarship providers, corporate entities, and those working to ensure educational opportunities gathered to comprehend the difficulties faced by the youth and collaboratively create policies to support and fulfill their aspirations so they can pursue further education.
According to Dr. Kraiyos Patrawart, Manager of the Equitable Education Fund (EEF), the government has given EEF a policy in the Thailand Zero Dropout project on how to keep Thai children and youth who are born into poverty and have disadvantages from leaving school too soon and from being able to pursue their full potential in higher education. This will enable these kids to help their families sustainably escape poverty. Thailand has experienced at least two economic crises in the past, both of which have slowed economic progress. The birth rate is also reportedly declining, which runs counter to the growing number of elderly individuals, according to surveys. The country’s potential to recover from the economic crisis may be hampered if underprivileged kids are not encouraged to pursue higher education.
Working in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education, the Student Loan Fund, the Council of University Presidents of Thailand, the Equitable Education Fund, and other organizations and universities, we examine the human development chain from birth to workforce entry, providing care for children before they enter school and attempting to keep them from leaving the educational system at different transitional stages until they enter higher education.
According to the Equitable Education Fund’s poverty screening, children and young people living below the poverty line are typically at risk of dropping out of school. These kids and young people will leave school if they are not adequately protected, particularly during Mathayom 3, a crucial changeover period.
One out of five impoverished and extremely poor children will leave school at Mathayom 3 and then leave again for high school or a vocational degree, which is over 70%. Only roughly 21,000, or 12%, of the 168,000 students who attended Mathayom 3, the final year of compulsory schooling, were able to get admission to universities.
Mr. Pawarin Pantiwet, an academic at the Equitable Education Research Institute (EEFI) who specializes in data and monitoring of educational inequality, presented the findings of connecting data on underprivileged students with data on confirmation of eligibility to study in the TCAS 2024 system with a focus on poor and extremely poor students who received equal scholarships from the Equitable Education Fund, including students in the Advanced Vocational Innovation Scholarship who continued their studies under the TCAS system. It was discovered that 22,351 students, or roughly 13.4% of the overall student body, joined the TCAS system in 2024, indicating an increase over prior years. While the proportion of children receiving support from the Equitable Education Fund this year is nearly equal to that of poor and extremely poor children, the makeup of the latter group has altered from last year, when the severity of poverty was lower for poor children than for extremely poor children.
The children who enter the TCAS system prefer to affirm their eligibility for the Portfolio round, which is the first round, and the Quota round, which is the second round out of three rounds, if we project the circumstances and the admittance under the system. Almost three out of four pupils who affirm their rights do so in the two rounds combined. Due to several constraints, including financial standing, students must select the round that will allow them to get to the institution the quickest.
According to the percentage of poor children divided by grade point average, forty percent of children with a grade point average of 3.50 or higher fall into the poor category. Up to 70% of kids achieving a grade point average of 3.00 or higher fall into the poor category. According to the results of the examination statistics under the TCAS system, which this year includes the T-Gat, T-Pat, and A-Level examsThe highest, lowest, and average scores and academic abilities of this group of children are not less than those of the nation’s children as a whole. These statistics show how populations with low incomes can still obtain education, even though they might not be able to pursue further education because of certain constraints and reasons.
Together with the research team, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Prompilai Buasuwan, Head of the Research Project, Faculty of Education, Kasetsart University, presented the findings of the study on the difficult paths of disadvantaged children and youth entering higher education. The study involved workshops with those working with children and youth in six regions to analyze the causes and solutions to the educational problems of students, as well as interviews with students nationwide. Higher education for this set of kids was compared to a road by the researcher, while the barriers to higher education were referred to as a “curve.” Incorporating other elements like family, income, and support from instructors and family, along with attitudes, interests, and academic aptitude, makes the curve more convoluted. When deciding whether or not to continue on the educational road, the “curve” can be summed up into four paths.
Path 1: Everyone starts with the same limitations but receives additional support, such as student loans or family support, allowing them to continue.
Path 2: The path starts to get dark, but someone helps guide them, allowing them to continue even though it is not smooth.
Path 3: Some decide not to pursue further education because they believe that education does not satisfy their demands in life or that higher education is not the solution.
Path 4: Because of a lack of encouragement and support, students wish to keep going but do not see a way out.
In addition, research data also found factors that affect the decision to continue their studies at the higher education level, with the most common being the students’ internal motivation, followed by parents, financial resources, teachers, and curriculum in some areas. The recommendations also included support for a range of career options, psychological counseling, credit transfer connected to a flexible education system, and the idea of establishing an “Education Foundation” in partnership with the private sector to assist children and youth in their academic endeavors.
At the “Social Innovation Hackathon” stage, children’s and youth advocates recommended the following actions to assist:
- Guidance on education: Primary or lower secondary instructors should provide adequate and high-quality guidance. Institutions of higher learning and vocational training should establish networks to offer students all-encompassing counsel, as well as outlets for online guidance.
- Curriculum and instructional methods: It should be varied and adaptable to the skills and interests of the students. Teaching and learning should focus on hands-on training to improve skills, earning extra money while studying, earning credits rather than studying subjects, using real-world experience to compare when graduating, giving children educational guidance to set learning goals, providing access to information sources about higher education, and providing high-quality teaching media.
- Developing a growth mindset: Children and young people should be inspired and given a safe environment by hearing life tales. Establishing a culture of joyful learning and planning motivating extracurricular activities are crucial tasks for educators and educational institutions.
- Welfare system: It includes transportation, food, educational resources, internet, and lodging for students who live in far-flung places. There are programs to help students earn extra money so they may get work experience, and there is a welfare system to provide for students’ families.
- Comprehensive and adequate scholarships: There should be a special quota for poor students who are good at studying and have determination, and a quota for fields that are consistent with local and regional development. There should be continuous support for scholarships from secondary school to higher education, and fields that are in demand by the labor market. There should be a fund for selected students who are eligible to continue their studies. The tuition fee payment period should be extended to be consistent with the time of receiving the loan. The government and business organizations should reduce the credit fees for poor students who are good at studying.
- Special welfare: Students who are impoverished with regard to food, living expenses, travel costs, supplies, internet fees, and other expenses should receive special assistance. Exemptions or discounts on test fees for different topics should be available, along with a complete examination center close by, a specific consulting center, and an additional tutoring system for students who work while they study.
- Courses and instructional strategies that emphasize generating revenue while learning: Given the inadequate cost of living, we want the public and private sectors to work together to support and assist students who work while they are in school. For instance, during their studies, universities might facilitate the transfer of credits.
At the “The Situation of Higher Education and Guidelines for Creating Educational Opportunity Guarantees” exchange forum, a presentation was given on how to analyze data from the TCAS system and link it using the School My Tcas.com system, which is crucial in evaluating and advising students. Additionally, recommendations were made to lower enrollment costs and lengthen the payment period, boost student enrollment, foster collaboration with entrepreneurs through flexible learning formats like Wisdom learning, which blends on-campus and off-campus learning, and emphasize the value of training guidance counselors and planning activities to encourage additional study in the TCAS system during the Portfolio round to help and support students without financial means.
At the end of the activity, the research team organized a brainstorming forum to drive the measures tangibly, with experts, sources of scholarships, business establishments, youth representatives, and stakeholders participating. They were divided into five groups as follows:
Group 1: Guidance system with accessibility and quality: Educational institutions and related networks, such as administrators, communities, and students, should have supporting policies from various ministries to enhance the readiness of guidance teachers to access necessary media and information. The issue of inadequate staffing and teachers who are not in the proper field, however, continues to be challenged. Administrators need to have a plan for arranging quality guidance activities that are broken down between medium-level activities, like setting up a network of district-level schools to share resources and improve indicators for assessing administrators, and urgent measures, like setting up mobile open houses.
Group 2: The instruction and curriculum are excellent and adaptable to the needs and circumstances of the learners: In schools, there is still unclear coordination in the distribution of study time and teamwork. Enhancing the curriculum, raising the funding, and interacting with pertinent agencies must be the main goals of the solution. Additional training, a lighter workload to allow teachers to entirely teach in the classroom, support for teaching aids, and evaluation of after-development should all be implemented to enhance teachers’ potential and improve the standard of instruction in schools.
Group 3: Modifying Mathayom’s Growth Mindset 1-3 students since a significant portion of this cohort has left the system: In addition to working with different foundations, it was discovered that the primary issues include coaching, student development, and fostering a learning environment through the use of technology and counseling, as well as planning camps and encouraging students to go field trips for study sessions. We could also promote a “model student society” and make efficient use of the resources offered by institutions. It can take some time to draft MOUs with businesses and communities, including collaborating with the Department of Mental Health to identify model kids.
Group 4: How can children be inspired to pursue lifetime learning?: Students lack the desire to finish their studies because they either don’t study in the faculty they are interested in from the start or don’t have goals for their lives and their studies. By fostering a sense of community and inspiration, things like hazing activities, relationship camps, senior/junior code activities, orientation, teacher appreciation activities, and alumni meetings, as well as volunteer opportunities both within and outside the universities make learning more engaging and boost involvement in extracurricular activities, this issue can be resolved quickly and easily.
Group 5: Group 5: Mathayom 3 students must receive scholarships: Solving the problem of Mathayom 3 students being able to continue their studies to higher education and receive necessary welfare should focus on examining the needs of each child individually, as each person has different needs. Inadequate guiding systems, low-income households, and a lack of financial support are significant issues influencing access to higher education. Relevant organizations like the Student Loan Fund, educational institutions, and the corporate sector should play a significant role in offering assistance by assembling different financing sources both locally and abroad and developing a platform to assist kids in finding scholarships.
