• 
• 

Published on July 4, 2007

Wijit said the transfer was made on the request of the Office of the Decentralisation to Local Government Organi-sation Committee.

Six of them are primary schools and four others provide extended and adult education. They are located in the Central and Northeast provinces. All 292 are described as list-two schools. Schools earmarked for decentralisation are divided into three "lists".

Wijit said most of the re-maining schools are secondary and not ready to be run by the local bodies.

The ministry and the committee are in dispute over the type and number of schools

that should be run by local bo-dies. Before decentralisation, schools were the responsibility of the Office of Basic Education Commission.

The ministry questions local-body capability to pro-vide quality of education and teachers.

Municipalities and Provincial and Tambon Administrative Organisations assert that education reforms gave them the mandate to manage schools and their funding in their areas.

Wijit said the ministry was "unnecessarily busy" with school transfers, a problem created by the previous government.

Decisions over the transfer of the remaining 282 list-two schools will not be made until the start of the May 2008 school year.

Wijit insists local bodies manage kindergarteners and pre-schools only. The commission is better qualified to run primary and secondary schools, he said.