Regional education authority restructured

Regional education authority restructured

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered the Education Ministry to restructure regional and provincial educational panels earlier set up by the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec).

As the chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, Gen Prayut issued the order late Monday night.

He said it would solve the inefficient and divided management of regional education services.

Obec has been operating through educational service area committees in provincial and district clusters.

Gen Prayut's order transferred their authority to new provincial educational committees chaired by provincial governors or their deputies.

Gen Prayut formed a regional education reform committee to direct regional educational services, approve the appointment of the members of provincial educational committees and education executives and officials at provincial and regional levels, and allocate budgets to regional and provincial educational organisations.

The regional education reform committee is chaired by the education minister and its members are deputy education ministers, the permanent secretary for education and secretaries-general of Obec, the Vocational Education Commission, the Higher Education Commission and the Education Council.

Members of provincial educational committees include representatives of the Education Ministry; the basic, vocational, higher, private and informal education commissions; the Office of the Teacher Civil Service and Educational Personnel Commission; local residents, tourism, sports, administrative, industrial, commerce, educational, Buddhist, cultural and teaching authorities; and specialists.

Gen Prayut said on Tuesday that the change was aimed at integrating the education service organisation to allow educational reform and at ensuring transparency in the appointments of school directors.

"In the past, authority was far decentralised in the way that reform was impossible... The authority of the Education Ministry was distributed to localities, including the appointments of school directors.

"We must check if the appointments are right, transparent and fair," the prime minister said.

He added that education services had not been coordinated with other ministries and students had not been educated to meet the country's needs.

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