Future trends indicate that there will be an increasing demand for teachers as a large number
of them are reaching retirement age. Furthermore, more teachers will be needed as Thailand
strives to universalize secondary education. However, this demand will be tempered by a
decreasing secondary age population in Thailand.
Thai teachers are aging. The age distribution of Thai teachers is skewed to those above 45
years old. In 2005, of 340,355 OBEC teachers, those older than 50 represented 27.2 percent,
and those aged 45 and over comprised 60.8 percent (see Figure 4). Since OBEC has hired only
4,000 teachers per year for the last few years and a substantial number of teachers will retire in
10 to 15 years, a shortage of experienced teachers is predicted