Urgent measures are needed to help students in provinces under maximum Covid-19 controls catch up on their studies, academics say.
Sompong Jitradub, a lecturer with Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Education, urged the government to come up with a plan to help these students.
"Since the Covid-19 outbreak, schools in Thailand have been forced to stop providing in-person education for about 90 days, or about 40%, of the academic year. As a result, the quality of education for many students has deteriorated," he said.
Mr Sompong said a recent study found spending long periods out of school can cut students' maths knowledge by half and their literacy by almost a third. "Education inequalities between poor and well-off students were already an issue in Thailand, even before the pandemic," he said.
"If we do nothing to reverse the learning losses during the pandemic, the gap will be even wider, which may lead to a cycle of poverty that repeats over multiple generations."
EEF education economist Pumsaran Tongliemnak said many countries are now concerned about the long-term impact of lost teaching time caused by Covid-19.
"Many countries already have a plan, so Thailand should have one as well. We might not be able to see the impact of school closures now, but we now know that it could cost us in the future," he said.
