The speed of the development of the economy depends critically on the rapidity of the improvement of the quality of its human resources. The development of the quality of the Thai population, measured in terms of educational attainment alone, has progressed relatively slowly, as revealed by the three population censuses, taken from 1960-80. The only significant change has been a reduction in the percentage of population with on education, which is a result in the proportion of population with compulsory primary education. However, the vast majority of the Thai population are still having at most four years of primary education. The pattern of distribution of population by educational attainment, as revealed by the three censuses, did not show much change, as can be seen from Table 1. The percentage of population with education beyond the primary level increased from 3.4 % in 1960 to 11.5 % in 1980.