WHILE THE Education Ministry insists its decision to merge small schools is part of a policy to reduce inequality, improve the quality of education and ensure consistent funding, the advocacy group ActionAid has voiced concerns that students may lose the opportunity to be educated and quality could suffer.

By 2020, the ministry hopes to merge thousands of small schools that have less than 120 students each with so-called “Magnet Schools” within a six-kilometre radius.

A few small schools were merged in the ministry’s first attempt in 2011, but the effort encountered obstacles such as parents being concerned about longer journeys, issues related to schools’ relationships with their communities and resistance from school administrators who faced losing their jobs.

After local administrative bodies conducted public-information campaigns, the policy will resume with transferring students and shuttering 10,971 small schools over the next five years. The 2016 academic year will see 827 schools, each with 20 pupils, merged with 361 Magnet Schools.

Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec) chief Karun Sakulpradit said merging schools would ensure proper class sizes and teachers would be available to teach every subject. He added that the merged schools would be jointly administered while students would be happier with more schoolmates.

Small schools in mountainous areas or on islands will be excluded from the scheme.

“The delicate matter of merging schools requires a good understanding by communities, whose cooperation is essential.

“How the 10,971 schools’ merge will depend on communities’ preparedness. Once the merger is complete, the ministry will provide teaching materials and facilities to improve the schools’ quality,” Karun said, adding that fiscal year 2016-17 would see 702 small schools being merged with Magnet Schools.

He said the previous attempt to merge schools saw students transferred to study at larger schools, while the budget distribution for maintenance, teachers, electricity and water remained the same. “This rotation of students was a compromise for communities that were attached to small schools, but it was not good as it affected quality, so we must change it urgently. This is what gave birth to the Magnet School project,” he said.

A budget of Bt3 million for each school with at least 130 students will be spent on school buildings, libraries or sports fields, while another Bt3 million will be spent on ICT materials, Karun said.

He added that before schools were merged, officials and school staff would explain the necessity to parents and community members who would be taken Magnet Schools to build support for the project.

The ministry hoped to build further support by letting communities use abandoned school buildings located on Obec-owned plots as “lifelong education learning centres”, Karun said, adding that Obec had called on the Office of Non-Formal and Informal Education to help communities utilise the facilities.

He also promised that administrators of small schools would be transferred to available positions elsewhere.

Karun said he was confident that students’ quality of education and academic performance would improve after the mergers, adding that students would also be provided with foundation courses to catch up with their peers.

Magnet Schools will also address students’ literacy problems with the Thai language and help to screen children with special needs, he said.

However, ActionAid Thailand’s programme and policy manager Rungtip Imrungruang said her organisation, which oversees policies for 200 small schools, did not believe that the mergers would reduce educational inequality, but instead the policy would worsen the problem.

‘Fall of the rolls’

Newly-transferred pupils will have problems adjusting to the new environment, she said.

“We are not against the mergers, but we want them to be well-planned and allow participation from all involved parties,” she said, adding that students’ opinions should be taken into account and measures taken to support students. “We are worried such stereotypical merging could cause some pupils to fall off the education system rolls,” she said.

Schools should educate students about local lifestyles and the community in addition to formal lessons, Rungtip said. ActionAid is working to make the Northeast province of Kalasin a model for small-school mergers next year, she said.

She said ActionAid had worked with small schools, especially in the Northeast, to integrate them with agricultural institutions such as Ban Nong Ya Plong School in Buri Ram, which is also a member of the ActionAid-established “Education Council for Northeasterners” small-school network.

She said the school provided outstanding education in line with the context of the community. For instance, she said, the school grew vegetables and raised pigs, chicken and fish, which reduced the costs of student lunches and allowed the school to earn extra income.

Students also learned about their community’s lifestyle and developed life skills so they could earn money to help their families after graduation.

In order to raise public awareness about the mergers, ActionAid will host a marathon on March 12 starting at the Rama 8 Bridge in Bangkok. Legs of the marathon will cover 4.5 kilometres, 13.2km and 22.6km to represent the distances students will have to travel to reach their schools after the mergers.

“Not only will they be farther from their schools, but they will also be closer to poverty, a bleak future and a lack of virtue,” she said.