Lamplaimat Pattana School
Education for Complete Human Development
Lamplaimat Pattana School was founded with the objective of demonstrating the possibility of providing a high-quality education to children in rural areas. It is a private school, but is owned by a non-profit organization, the Lamplaimat Pattana Foundation, and does notcharge tuition fees; financial support comes mainly from charitable donations. It opened in 2002 and has approximately 240 children enrolledat the kindergarten and primary levels. It does not select children based on ability; instead, a lottery is used when necessary. It is located in a rural part of Buriram province in the North-East of Thailand; Buriram is one of the poorest provinces in Thailand, with educational scores in the bottom 10% of provinces.
There is a real need for such a school. Thailand has made good progress towards achieving the goal of universal primary and secondary education,with 95% of children attending school. However, quality remains a major problem, particularly in rural areas. The Ministry of Education has recently introduced a new national curriculum, which is aligned withmodern educational thinking. However, most schools have found it difficult to change their traditional teaching methods to meet the needsof the new curriculum.