He also insisted the transfer of public libraries was not part of the decentralisation plan.

Wijit will call ministry executives to a meeting this evening following the Decentralisation to Local Government Organisation Committee (DLGOC) resolution on Monday to have the ministry submit within seven days a list of those of the "list 2" schools that were ready for the transfer. These schools would be the second batch to be transferred.

As the ministry this academic year had already transferred "list 1" and "list 3" schools to the local administrative bodies, Wijit said the "list 2" schools were "problematic ones". He affirmed the ministry's stance that all 292 "list 2" schools - mostly secondary schools under the Basic Education Commission - should not be transferred at once. Instead the authorities should transfer a certain number at a time to avoid problems and to seek solutions.

Wijit insisted the DLGOC had not yet reached a resolution for the transfer of public libraries from the Non-Formal Education Commission (NFEC) to local administrative bodies, but merely asked NFEC to consider it.

If the transfer was implemented, the criteria to evaluate the local administrations' readiness to take up the task must be set first, in the same manner of the school transfer, Wijit said. "The library transfer is not part of the action plan and is an opinion by DLGOC. How can the Education Ministry formulate the criteria for what is not part of the plan in the first place?" he said.

NFEC director Sombat Suwanpitak said if there were a transfer of all 72 provincial-level and 697 district-level public libraries, it would affect the teaching and learning arranged by NFEC because non-formal education students use them for information research and they thus should be ensured to connect with NFEC.

He also urged local bodies to focus on developing community learning centres instead and to maintain the cooperation with NFEC to arrange non-formal education for locals.