Education Minister Wijit Srisa-an said yesterday the affected students, at their parents' choice, would be sent back to their original schools once the damaged or destroyed buildings were repaired or rebuilt.

However, the repair work on the damaged schools or their rebuilding would not begin anytime soon as parents were still afraid to send their children back to study there, he said.

A survey would be done soon to check whether those schools should ever be repaired or rebuilt, he said, adding they could be abandoned forever if the survey found that no schoolchildren would return to study there.

The schools involved in the safety moves were Wiang Raj Uppatham, in Narathiwat, which has taken students from four schools in Yala, and the Bannang Sata Intharachat School, which has taken students from a school in Narathiwat's Bacho district.

Meanwhile, Muslim separatists burned Ban Talad Lam Mai School in Yala's Muang district at 1.20am yesterday. The fire caused vast damage to the school, where 80 children from kindergarten to Grade 3 classes study, but there were no casualties.

Seven schools in Yala's Yaha district and another 35 in Bannang Sata district have still been closed for security concerns at the request of officials.