Boarding project to help disadvantaged students in South
The Office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) has set up projects in 73 schools in the deep South to provide boarding for Prathom 1-Mathayom 6 students who were either abandoned, whose families earned less than Bt30,000 a year, or were affected by the unrest and deemed in need of such aid to ensure educational opportunity.
The project – to provide accommodation, security, and three meals a day plus basic tools and teachers' consultations in academic lessons and life skills – opened for application on January 3. Applications can be submitted until January 31.
Under the banner “Pracha Rath Schools in Southern Border Provinces”, 73 primary and secondary schools in 37 districts of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat plus Songkhla’s four adjacent Chana, Thepa, Na Thawee and Saba Yoy districts have been recruiting boarding students, said OBEC chief Boonrak Yodphetch. Another four technical colleges in the region also joined the project voluntarily, he added.
The project is aimed to ensure underprivileged children have the chance for an education no matter their past academic results. There would be no limit to the number who could enroll in the program, Boonrak said. An initial survey found that some 3,000 children were interested in signing up.
Boonrak said he has instructed directors of the Education Service Area Offices in the region to promote the project in public spaces, to make enrolment a priority while a team was assigned to co-ordinate information and provide him an update on daily basis on the projects' progress.
The budget to provide boarding to the primary pupils was set at around Bt10,000 per head per year, the lower secondary students at Bt20,000 per hear per year, and the upper secondary students at Bt30,000 per head per year, he said.
In March, after the student recruitment has concluded, OBEC would see which school had many boarding students and in need of a budget to build a dormitory, so the agency could set a budget for the fiscal year 2019, Boonrak said.