OBEC planning fee to improve state school

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OBEC planning fee to improve state school
By SUPINDA NA MAHACHAI
The Nation 2011-06-28

The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) wants to impose a new service fee and set up incentives that encourage parents to raise funds for school improvement.

Obec secretary-general Chinnapat Bhumirat said yesterday that after schools were banned from collecting donations during the period when they recruit students or taking money in exchange for student places, the amount of donations made to schools dropped greatly.

This was especially true for large schools where state funds were only enough to cover basic expenses - and were not enough to develop to a higher standard. So Obec wanted to find ways to persuade parents to raise funds for school development.

It plans to announce an Education Ministry regulation soon to collect a service fee at Obec-supervised schools so they have enough money to undertake improvements.

The Obec Office of Policy and Planning had been asked to gather opinions about fund-raising as well as recruiting students for Mathayom 1 and 4 using O-Net (Ordinary National Educational Test) scores, he said.

He affirmed that Obec would maintain the principle of prohibiting donations while students are recruited and said fund-raising must not be a condition for recruitment.

The 22 items that schools cannot collect money from parents for because the state already pays for them include tuition fees, textbooks, uniforms, field trips, academic activity expenses, scout activity costs, student identity cards, academic result reports, |etc.

Schools that provide extracurricular activities to promote and develop education quality can ask for voluntary donations from parents - provided their requests are approved by Obec and announced in advance to parents and students.

Eligible activities include the English Programme (EP) and Mini-English Programme (MEP).