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Education
Thailand enjoys a high level of literacy, and education is provided by a
well organized school system of kindergartens, primary, lower secondary
and upper secondary schools, numerous vocational colleges, and
universities. The private sector of education is well developed and
significantly contributes to the overall provision of education which the
government would not be able to meet through the public establishments.
Education is compulsory up to and including Grade 9, and the government
provides free education through to Grade 12.
Thailand has never been colonized, and therefore its educational system
does not draw off of European models to a great extent. Education in a
modern sense is relatively recent and, according to some sources, still
needs to overcome some major cultural hurdles in order to ensure further
development and improvement to its standards, which in some respects have
fallen to the lowest levels in southeast Asia.
The establishment of reliable and coherent curricula for its primary and
secondary schools is subject to such rapid changes that schools and their
teachers are not always sure what they are supposed to be teaching, and
authors and publishers of textbooks are unable to write and print new
editions quickly enough to keep up with the volatile situation. The issue
concerning university entrance has therefore also been in constant
upheaval for a number of years. Nevertheless, education has seen its
greatest progress in the years since 2001, most of the present generation
of pupils and students are computer literate, and knowledge of English is
on the increase at least in quantity if not in quality.resource : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thailand |