Thailand is in the midst of a major education reform. Its primary goal is to improve the quality of
education in response to Thailand’s development challenges, the social costs of development
and the poor academic achievement of Thai youth (Atagi, 2002).
As Thailand has achieved universal primary education and lower secondary education
is compulsory, there is an increasing awareness that secondary education is critical to the
future of today’s youth. Expanding access to secondary education and ensuring the quality
and relevance of secondary education represents a major challenge. Often, a rapid expansion
of access is pursued at the cost of failing to deliver quality education. Access to secondary
education is meaningful only when the quality and relevance of education are assured.
Furthermore, secondary education can be a bottleneck to sustainable development if
equitable access to quality secondary education remains an issue.
The need to expand access to secondary education and improve its quality is strongly
reflected in important policy documents approved as an integral part of the current
educational reform in 1997 and 1998. The 1997 Constitution formed the foundation for the
current education reforms. With the objective of transforming Thai society into a “learning
society”, the Constitution included provisions that aim to provide greater access to education
through formal, non-formal and informal education channels and stressed equal opportunity
and twelve years of free quality education for all. The Eighth National Economic and Social
Development Plan (1997-2001) emphasized developing “quality and capable Thais who can
initiate ideas and be creative” (NESDB, 1997). Enactment of the 1999 National Education Act
(NEA) was a major step towards realizing educational reform (ONEC, 1999). As stipulated in the
1997 Constitution, the NEA serves as the master legislation for educational reform.
Based on the NEA, supportive policies for teachers are needed to provide an environment
conducive for improving access to quality education. The practice of teachers lecturing to
students and enforcing rote learning is most prevalent in secondary education, especially
at the upper secondary level in which teaching focuses on preparing students to take the
university entrance examination (ONEC, 2000).