The Office of the Vocational Education Commission (Ovec) will likely miss this academic year's target enrolment of 196,000 students in 889 public and private vocational colleges nationwide.
Ovec secretary-general Suthep Chittayawong recently revealed that until now, only 134,461 students have signed up for vocational programmes -- about 68% of its target.
According to Ovec, the number of students enrolling in vocational courses in 42 provinces for the 2017 academic year has declined from the previous year. The least popular courses are commerce and industrial textiles.
"We are disappointed by these figures because we have put so much effort into promoting vocational education among Thai youths. We will find out soon what the main factors behind this problem are," Mr Suthep said.
Ovec's chief said he would hold a meeting within this week with representatives of vocational courses from 42 provinces that have failed to meet their target enrolment to discuss the problem.
Mr Suthep said low birth rates might be the most likely cause of decline in enrolment, while the issue of violence between vocational schools and parents' prejudice against vocational education may still play a role.
"Low fertility rates are an unavoidable reality, but we need to keep working hard on improving the poor image of vocational education among students and parents by eradicating fights between rival technical colleges," he said.
Earlier, Ovec forecast a slight increase in the number of vocational students in Thailand for this year after it set a target to shift the ratio of vocational to general education students from the current 39:61 to 42:58 by the end of this year.
The government also set a long-term target to increase the ratio of vocational to general education students to 60:40 over the next 20 years. Last academic year, the number of students enrolling in vocational courses also declined by 0.4% from the previous year.
According to a recent study by the Office of the Education Council, negative attitudes towards vocational education are the biggest challenge preventing Ovec from reaching its target.
One study suggested that to make vocational education more successful, businesses, communities and localities need to join hands with Ovec to help change parents' negative attitude towards it.