The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) has given the nod for 12,865 civil servants to join the early-retirement scheme.
After a meeting of Obec executives yesterday, secretary-general Chinapat Phumirat said 13,025 officials had initially applied for the scheme but some withdrew their applications, hence only 12,865 remained up for early retirement, which filled the quota given to the agency this year.
The agency also had Bt5.487 billion ready to pay the retirees, Chinapat said. As the educational zone offices had a sufficient human-resource budget to pay for the retirees' welfare allowances and to cover the cost of replacement officials over a five-month period, Obec thus did not need to ask for Cabinet approval.
The director of Obec's human resource management system development office said some of those who had withdrawn retirement applications had told him that the government was about to give a pay increase to all civil servants, including public-school teachers, so they stayed on to get a bigger salary and an increased pension.