Spending on education must be a priority

"Progress has been too slow and too uneven in many countries. There is now a clear and present danger that some key [EFA] goals will not be achieved," said Unesco Director-General Koichiro Matsuura in the report's foreword.

The latest available data show Thailand (2005) and Malaysia (2004) with the highest allocation of total public expenditure to education at 25 per cent, compared to 15 per cent for the Philippines (2005) and 14 per cent in Laos (2006). However, as a percentage of its gross national product, Thailand's total public expenditure on education was 4.3 per cent of GNP in 2005, a drop from 5.1 per cent in 1999.

This figure should encourage the government to promote access to education as it demonstrates that Thailand has not sufficiently spent to improve the quality of its human resources, even though the report also shows that 94 per cent of children aged 6-11 were enrolled in primary schools in 2006.

Now that the government is doling out a massive amount of money on education, the Unesco release should serve as a guideline for what else can and should be done. After all, money invested in education will produce the most satisfactory and sustainable results. Other populist programmes usually only produce profits in the short term.