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Published on February 27, 2008

"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 yesterday in his capacity as chair of the Secondary School Executive Association of Thailand.

In the past administration, then-education minister Dr Wijit Srisa-arn issued a regulation barring schools from collecting study-related costs from parents, except for services given in addition to normal courses.

Executives of many secondary schools - including prestigious ones - have complained that such a regulation would force the schools to lower the quality of their educational services.

"We have hired native speakers to teach English. Each of them has a salary of around Bt40,000. We normally ask parents for help with such expenses," said Amornrat Pin-ngern, 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 prescribing 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 junior secondary student from Bt2,649 to Bt3,500 a year, and from Bt3,249 to Bt3,800 per senior secondary student.

 "We will receive Bt8 million as subsidy per year but our annual infrastructure fees alone are about Bt5 million," Prakasit told a meeting in Trang.

He said the government subsidy was sufficient for basic educational services, not for the top services.

The Nation