New Obec panel to review free schooling for migrant children
Play
The Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec) has set up a panel to further review the proposal of providing 15 years of free schooling to migrant children after human-rights advocates voiced objection to the commission's initial plan of only providing
Thai students, in comparison, get five items for free during their 15 years of mandatory schooling.
Obec chief Kamol Rodklai said the naysayers claimed that such an approach would only put the burden on schools and parents, while creating educational inequality.
Kamol said Obec has been providing per-head subsidy, while schools used their own budget to cover the cost of migrant children. However, he said, since the number of migrant children in Thai schools was rising, and as many of them changed schools often to match their parents’ job prospects, his office wanted to find a way to take care of these children.
He said the idea of just providing migrant children with only free tuition and learning tools was just an idea at this point, not a policy. He added that Obec still had to discuss the issue with the Budget Bureau and other related agencies, which could take more than a year.
He added the agency had set up a committee to review the plan, especially the budget as the educating migrant children was also important.
