There is much to celebrate in the new Equitable Education Fund Act and I commend the Thai government for this high-level focus on eliminating disparities in education. With the correct implementation plans and targeted strategies, the fund can help tackle the significant inequities that exist in the education system.
The 2017 constitution called for the establishment of a fund to address inequities in education and to support the education of children with insufficient means. Following approval by cabinet and passage through the National Legislative Assembly, the Equitable Education Fund Act came into force last month.
The fund has an initial budget of 1 billion baht and will then be funded on an annual basis from a mixture of government budget and private sector contributions. The fund will be managed by an independent board established by the act, which is responsible for developing and implementing annual plans and budgets which require cabinet approval.
During the preparation phase, I witnessed how wide consultation with stakeholders helped inform the final version of the act, and Unicef had the opportunity to contribute to the development of the fund's vision.
Now that the fund is moving towards developing strategies and plans of action, the problem of equity in education needs to be better defined. In order to be effective, the fund must focus and prioritise on the most excluded. This means being specific as to who the fund will target and the vulnerabilities that it will address -- poverty, disabilities, migrant children, children living in certain parts of Thailand or ethnic minority children.
Thailand has made considerable progress over the past decades in increasing access to primary and secondary schooling through high levels of government investment. At the same time, disparities continue, particularly at secondary school, based on wealth, gender, language and geography. The gap in secondary school attendance between rich and poor students has widened over the past decade.
It is clear Thailand will not achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals -- that have set the target that by 2030 all children will have completed both primary and secondary schooling and acquired important skills -- if it does not tackle these disparities with specific strategies and resources.
A recent survey shows education disparities begin from the early years with evidence that early intervention and equity-focused strategies have a positive impact for the lowest-performing students. More equitable learning outcomes also benefit society: a well-educated young population will help competitiveness and productivity, contributing to economic growth and poverty reduction.
Because of potential overlaps between the Education Equity Fund and the mandates of ministries that have substantial budgets and equity-focused education strategies, the fund will need to ensure complementarity of action with existing programmes.
The fund should carefully define success, based on a clear theory of change that matches the size of it's budget and related interventions. The entire education budget amounts to 20% of the overall government budget, but it has not been successful in addressing structural inequalities and individual and household vulnerabilities which exclude children from the system or lead to early drop out.
With a far smaller budget, this Education Equity Fund cannot be expected to single-handedly eliminate all disparities.
The fund cannot be a substitute for existing government systems, strategies and budgets. The accountability to provide quality education for all children in Thailand remains with the mandated ministries and agencies.
That said, the fund can play a strategic supporting role, helping to identify solutions and catalysing ambitious results across the entire education system to reduce systemic inequities facing children. I believe that this is not only possible, but that this catalytic role will be crucial to its success.
To be successful, the fund must generate evidence of what works in Thailand to reduce individual and systemic disparities. One way to do so is to conduct research and to pilot cost-effective and high impact interventions in selected marginalised areas, with a view to scaling up best practice nationally, with funds from the overall education budget.
The fund should also be employed to support government ministries to integrate existing education data and information management systems, so that data can be shared across agencies and ministries. This will result in better analyses of systemic disparities and monitoring of how inequities are being reduced over time.
The fund should be welcomed as a recognition that "business as usual" is not sufficient to successfully resolve the inequities in education in Thailand today. It presents a real opportunity to make the necessary changes, and to place equity at the heart of education in Thailand, as a catalyst to achieve the education Sustainable Development Goals.
