Abstract:
The study consists of two parts. First, “Inequality and Educational Investment
in Thai Children” is a quantitative study that employs two secondary data sources:
firstly, the 1990 and 2000 censuses; secondly, the Kanchanaburi project of the
Institution for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University. The aim of the
study on “Inequality and Educational Investment in Thai Children” was to examine the
factors which have an impact on further education at the high school level. Second,
“Community and School Participation: A Route towards Decentralization for
Community Empowerment” is a study that collected qualitative data from relevant
persons in a district of Kanchanaburi province. The main objective of the study was to
study the situation regarding community and school participation in education provision
leading to community empowerment.
The results showed that an educational advantage increasingly favors girls
over boys between 1990 and 2000. Younger siblings tended to diminish educational
opportunities of going on to high school. In addition, urban-rural differences also
played an important role in educational inequality, especially the regions which are less
developed or poorest. Moreover, the results confirmed the effects of the socio-economic
background on educational opportunity. Furthermore, Muslims in the South are not
transitioning to upper secondary school at rates comparable to the general population.
The results of qualitative method showed that school’s inaccessibility to community
potential and knowledge was an obstacle of educational equality as well.
Thus, any future policy should focus not only accessibility to school that is
relevant to such dimensions of inequality as gender, income, residence, and religion,
but also on a process of school administrators and staff that can access community
potential and knowledge.