Education system in Thailand holds to the principle of lifelong education
in which the formal education refers to basic education with six years of primary level,
three years of lower secondary level and three years of upper secondary level. The
compulsory education of Thailand is 9 years but all Thais are to legally receive 12 years
of free basic education. There are presently 759 vocational institutions and 892 higher
education institutions in which 516 of them are under the government administration,
while 376 institutions belong to the private sector. In terms of the continuation of further
education, It was found that the students who completed lower secondary education in
academic years 2001/2002 and continued to further their studies at higher education are
as high as 90%, while those who completed upper secondary education are 88% and
higher education are 39.5% (Office of the National Education Commission 2003: p.20-
21, 37, 39-40)
The survey of literacy rate undertaken in 2005 by the Office of the National Statistic
Bureau was found that the number of literate population whose ages were 15 years and