and distant provinces, Ministry officials, politicians, teacher supervisors, parents, and
interested community members visited the school in order to see educational reform
in action. All parties agreed on the value of expanding implementation of IPM
program to other schools as quickly as feasible. However, dissemination would
require a level of institutional support that had never been provided to the IPM
developers during the early years.
Thus, despite the enthusiastic response, there was an inevitable time-lag in
implementation due to the need to write the program into the annual budget cycle.
Initially, supportive officials at the Ministry of Education were only find funds in the
current budget to sponsor expansion to one additional province. In subsequent years,
the mainstream department, the Office of the National Primary Education
Commission (ONPEC), at the national and provincial levels, contributed funds to
supplement financial support TEF solicited from the FAO. However, the contributions
have yet to be committed as long-term support due to frequent changes of senior
leaders at the policy level.
The program then got caught in a paradoxical situation. The key decisionmaker
on budget allocation at the Ministry of Education wanted to expand the
program immediately to every school in Thailand. This was impossible given the
human resources available. Unfortunately, this limitation then led decision-makers to
withdraw broader financial support which again left the implementers searching for
funds. At this point, expansion of the IPM program continues to lack reliable central
funding and must be cobbled together from a variety of sources. As a result, TEF
was prompted to change the strategy towards building capacity of the Eco-Schools
Network to develop proposals, solicit funding and manage their programs.