page_title: Thailand
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Thailand / Education
caption_attribution_description: English: Thai male students of lower secondary level ไทย: นักเรียนชายในเครื่องแบบนักเรียนระดับชั้นมัธยมศึกษาตอนต้น
context_page_description: Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and formerly known as Siam, is a country in Southeast Asia. Located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, it is composed of 76 provinces, and covers an area of 513,120 square kilometres, and a population of over 66 million people. Thailand is the world's 50th-largest country by land area, and the 22nd-most-populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, a special administrative area. Thailand is bordered to the north by Myanmar and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Myanmar. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. Nominally, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy; however, in recent history, its government has experienced multiple coups and periods of military dictatorships.
context_section_description: In 2018 the literacy rate was 93.8%. The youth literacy rate was 98.1% in 2015. Education is provided by a well-organised 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 with public establishments. Education is compulsory up to and including age 14, with the government providing free education through to age 17. Thailand is the 3rd most popular study destination in Asean. The number of international degree students in Thailand increased by fully 979% between 1999 and 2012, from 1,882 to 20,309 students. The most of international students come from Asian neighbor countries from China, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. The number of higher education institutions in Thailand has grown strongly over the past decades from just a handful of universities in the 1970s to 156 officially. The two top-ranking universities in Thailand are Chulalongkorn University and Mahidol University. Thai universities research output still relatively low by international ranking comparison, Recent initiatives, such as the National Research University from 9 universities around the country and Graduate research intensive university: VISTEC, designed to strengthen Thailand's national research universities, however, appear to be gaining traction. Thailand's research output, as measured by journal publications, increased by 20% between 2011 and 2016.
  Teaching relies heavily on rote learning rather than on student-centred methodology. 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 volatility. Issues concerning university entrance has been in constant upheaval for a number of years. Nevertheless, Thai education has seen its greatest progress in the years since 2001. Most of the present generation of students are computer literate. Thailand was ranked 74th out of 100 countries globally for English proficiency. Thailand has the second highest number of English-medium private international schools in Southeast Asian Nations, according to the International School Consultancy Group 181 schools around the country in 2017 compared to just 10 international schools for expatriate children in 1992.
  Students in ethnic minority areas score consistently lower in standardised national and international tests.
  This is likely due to unequal allocation of educational resources, weak teacher training, poverty, and low Thai language skill, the language of the tests.
  Extensive nationwide IQ tests were administered to 72,780 Thai students from December 2010 to January 2011. The average IQ was found to be 98.59, which is higher than previous studies have found. IQ levels were found to be inconsistent throughout the country, with the lowest average of 88.07 found in the southern region of Narathiwat Province and the highest average of 108.91 reported in Nonthaburi Province. The Ministry of Public Health blames the discrepancies on iodine deficiency, and as of 2011 steps were being taken to require that iodine be added to table salt, a practice common in many Western countries.
  In 2013, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology announced that 27,231 schools would receive classroom-level access to high-speed internet.
caption: Thailand is a country where school uniform is still mandatory.
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