# **1. Introduction**

There is a general consensus on the need for Thailand to reform its education system to be able to compete with other high performing countries in the region (Patrinos _et al._ 2012). Education is crucial for economic growth (Jimenez, Nguyen and Patrinos 2012) and increasing the level of education of the labor force in rural areas contributed to 26 percent of the reduction in poverty. Nevertheless, Thai workers do not possess the skill set necessary to compete in the East Asian manufacturing markets (Bhaopichitr, Mala and Triratanasirikul 2012).

In terms of learning outcomes, the most recent evidence from PISA (OECD 2013) shows little improvement. In mathematics, the annualized rate of growth in Thai scores did not change since 2009, while reading scores increased by 1 percent and science scores by 4 percent. Despite these modest advances in reading and science, Thailand had a lower than average share of high scorers, and a higher than average share of low scorers, than the average for the 64 countries participating in PISA.

The Thai education system over-emphasizes inputs and has a large administrative structure that results in lower salaries for all, which reduces the probability of offering higher salaries for better teachers. This structural problem reduces equity and efficiency, and leads to a lack of higherlevel and critical thinking among students (Fry and Bi 2013).

Overall, there is a general consensus that Thailand will need to reconcile its intent in education system policies with the reality of the school level. One step in this direction is to assess the gap between policy intent and policy implementation, which is the main focus of this analysis.

The objective of this analysis is to compare policy intent with policy implementation in school autonomy and accountability in Thailand, with the purpose of assisting policy dialogue based on school-level evidence. Benchmarking policy implementation can be very useful for decision makers because the difference between policy intent and policy implementation can help fine tune the incentives and disincentives required at the school level to ensure that education policy has its desired effect.

**<mark>Box 1—SABER</mark>** <mark>.  The Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) is an initiative of the World Bank with the purpose of producing comparative data and knowledge on education policies and institutions. Its aim is to help countries systematically strengthen their education systems. SABER evaluates the quality of education policies against evidence-based global standards, using new diagnostic tools and detailed policy data collected for the initiative. T</mark> he SABER approach encompasses: (i) an analytical framework to guide policy dialogue and foster policy reforms; (ii) relevant new data and information on education policies and institutional practices from other countries in the world, and (iii) concise analyses of how well the policies and institutions in each domain are aligned toward achieving Learning for All. SABER’s systems approach recognizes that improving education requires strengthening all factors that improve learning, and that a system's policies for governance, accountability, information systems, financing rules, and school management have to be aligned to ensure good performance. In the process, SABER identifies <mark>some common policy and institutional threads that run through most of the more successful experiences, allowing users to use the information as a tool for their own policy dialogue.</mark> Source: <mark>http://saber.worldbank.org/index.cfm</mark>

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