Parents should pay study fees, say schools

"We hope the Office of Basic Education Commission and the Education Ministry will take action on the issue by early next month," Wittaya Boriboonsap said  in his capacity as  chair of the Secondary School Executive Association of Thailand.

In the past administration, theneducation minister Dr Wijit Srisaarn issued a regulation barring schools from collecting studyrelated costs from par¬ents, except for services given in addition to normal courses.

Executives of many secondary schools  including high fee, prestigious ones  have complained

that such a regulation would force the schools to lower the quality of their educational services.

"We have hired native speak¬ers to teach English. Each of them has a salary of around Bt40,000. We normally ask parents for help with such expenses," said  Amornrat Pinngern,  director of Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni) School.

Amornrat said the Education Ministry did not need to revoke the regulation issued by Wijit, but it should issue a new regulation pre¬scribing exemptions in reasonable cases.

Debsirin School director, Prakasit Yangkong said the increased government subsidy per student was still not enough to cover real expenses.

The government is set to raise the annual subsidy per juniorsecondary student from Bt2,649 to Bt3,500 a year, and from Bt3,249 to Bt3,800 per seniorsecondary student.

 "We will receive Bt8 million as subsidy per year but our annual infrastructure fees alone are about Bt5 million," Prakasit said.

He said the government sub¬sidy was sufficient for basic edu¬cational services, not for the top services.

They were voicing their con¬cerns during a meeting in Trang.

The Nation