The Education Ministry plans to bring 60,000 children who finished school at Matthayom 3 level last year back into the education system as it is worried about the effect so many early leavers will have on economic growth.
The plan was unveiled yesterday after a ministry survey revealed that about 60,000, or 7% of students finishing junior high school level (Matthayom 3 ) last year, have chosen to enter the workforce rather than pursuing higher education.
The students quit the classroom due to lack of motivation, little support from parents, poor academic performance and economic problems, the survey found.
Dapong: Kids leaving too early
For the sake of their futures and the country's economic prospects, Education Minister Dapong Ratanasuwan said he has instructed officials to encourage these former students to come back.
"Every student who finishes Matthayom 3 should have a chance to pursue further studies either in a senior high school or vocational college," he said.
"From my point of view, they should not leave school too early as it might affect the country's social development and economic growth," Gen Dapong said.
He said economic growth is based on having a qualified labour force, so keeping people in school longer would supply the job market with workers who can take up higher-skilled jobs.
Gen Dapong said the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) and the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (Ovec) will work on the problem.
"Ovec and Obec have to figure out how they will absorb these youngsters into the system and in case the students need to work to make money to help their families, the Office of the Non-formal and Informal Education will have to look after them," he said.
Ovec secretary-general Chaipreuk Sereerak said his agency wants to boost the number of students enrolled in vocational courses to 300,000 by next term, so the body is planning to bring some out-of-school children, especially the ones who need to work to support their families financially, back into vocational programmes so they can further their studies.
"We will try to persuade them they can still work while attending school because we have a dual-education system, which is a collaboration between large private firms and vocational schools, allowing students to have first-hand work experience while they are studying and still get paid," he said.
Mr Chaipreuk said Ovec itself also is dealing with a dropout problem in vocational schools as it found the number of students who left vocational colleges between 2013-2015 totalled 61,888.
However, this year the drop-out rate among vocational students had fallen to 9%, which is the first time it's been under 10% in many years.