The Thai Ministry of Education has

The Thai Ministry of Education has promoted the quality of education. Nevertheless, the
number of students who drop out of schools has been constant (Bunyagiat, 2010). The causes of
the withdrawal included poverty, illness, accidents, illegality and pregnancy. Therefore, teachers
should play a major role to prevent these problems and to provide students with qualified guidance
services which help reduce these crises. In this regard, the Ministry of Education requires all teachers
to function as a guidance teacher in order to take care of students thoroughly. At the moment, the
Ministry of Education has a policy to have school teachers visit their students’ homes. This is to assist
and to take care of students closely. However, this policy is not practical for all areas, since in some
areas the student-teacher ratio is very high. For example, the student-teacher ratio in the Bangkok area
is 24:1, whereas it is 19:1 in provincial areas (Ministry of Education, 2009, retrieved from http://www.
moe.go.th/data_stat).