Last month, Asean announced the signing of its Declaration on Strengthening Education for Out-of-School Children and Youth, with an aim to keep its commitment to the spirit of UN Sustainable Development Goal 4: to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" by the year 2030.
The high number of children out of school in Asean, totalling about 3.2 million, yields enormous societal economic cost, approximately 26 billion US dollars, in lost opportunities.
In Thailand alone, 380,000 children are in this group. Of those, more than 200,000 are primary school children. Unesco estimates the societal cost to Thailand at 6.5 billion US dollars (225 billion baht), meaning if the children had gone through school and graduated, they would have had better employment opportunities, contributing this amount to the economy. Other Asean countries experience the same problem: In Indonesia, 1.9 million primary school children are out of school.
The out-of-school children phenomenon occurs more in socio-economically depressed areas, which in Thailand means the Western border provinces and Northeast Thailand. They also tend to come from ethnic minority communities, for example Thai Karen and Thai Khmer. However, it should be noted that in Thailand, the majority of out-of-school children are those from families of migrant workers, mainly from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. And, because of Bangkok's economic primacy and unequal regional development, there are far more out-of-school children in the City of Angels than any other region.
This is why the Asean Declaration is so important; In some countries, out-of-school children are a largely transboundary phenomenon. The challenges are therefore multiple, affecting the entire region, and are recognised to include migration, status and statelessness. The underlying principles guiding the Asean Declaration derive from the 2015 Incheon Declaration: Education 2030 as well as the Unesco Education 2030 Framework for Action.
The first principle, inclusivity, means education is a human right; in the case of migrant children, this is not yet guaranteed in Thailand.
The second, equity, means education should target the most marginalised and reduce disparities in educational attainment. In Thailand, there are significant differences in educational attainment between Central Thai children and those of ethnic minorities, especially Thai Malay, Thai Khmer, Thai Lao and mountain peoples' children.
The third principle, accessibility, means education must be "for all children and youth irrespective of gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, geographic location, religion, belief, culture, social origin and other origins". In Thailand, other than the children of migrants, probably the most severe cases of inaccessibility involve education for children in the Western border camps descended from Myanmar refugees, as well as an education for Thai Malay children that is suitable for their ethnolinguistic and socio-cultural background.
The fourth principle is continuity, meaning low truancy and drop-out rates. This is especially a problem for the children of migrant workers in Bangkok, for parents involved in transient work find it hard to take their children to the same school for the time they are working in the country. While the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration does attempt to find places for such children and non-governmental organisations such as Save the Children attempt to assist, much more must be done to provide constant access to schooling, including programmes targeting at-risk migrant communities.
The fifth principle is quality, which has been a problem for the Thai education system since its inception. Children in Bangkok schools fare approximately as well as those in average American schools. However, especially in the deep South, the West, and the Northeast, educational attainment is in crisis, with a very wide gap existing, especially in the Thai language subject. There are even indications a regional education may negatively affect IQ. Thailand needs more effective teachers, curriculums, and pedagogical methods to provide a level of quality such that parents keep their children in school. Parroting the Twelve Core Values of Thai People must be replaced by community-level schooling designed to implement the values by addressing real problems.
The sixth principle, flexibility, emphasises lifelong learning, non-formal education, vocational education and adult education for those with no primary education. In Thailand, the Freirean critical khit-pen pedagogy, or "to think-to be", was at one time the guiding philosophy behind adult education in Thailand. It still carries much weight as a means of examining one's aspirations and role in solving social issues such as poverty.
The final principle, sustainability, will be the true test of the Asean Declaration. The Declaration states that education should be a cornerstone for human development, encourage respect for the planet, and aid in the quest for prosperity, peace and partnership. In practice, the Declaration calls for implementation to be conducted at three levels: legislation, policies, and action plans. This means developing programmes and policies, devising mechanisms and capacity building initiatives, creating information and monitoring systems, dedicating material, and coordinating the Asean effort.
It also means assembling the necessary political will and commitment to solve multiple regional education problems, especially the education of ethnic minority children. Other than the cases already mentioned, of obvious concern is the education of Vietnam's Christian minority highlands peoples, the Rakhine State Muslims, and the Hmong in Laos. In every Asean country, this implies dual language programmes teaching both the mother tongue and the national language, one of the key recommendations of the recently completed Unicef Language and Education for Social Cohesion project.
For Thailand, sponsoring the Declaration means a special role. Migrant workers would prioritise their children's education if they could more easily apply for Thai residency.
Ultimately, educating this group of children in Thailand by 2030 implies a massive re-allocation of financial resources. In addition to making the Ministry of Education more efficient, the government must reconsider its spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on Chinese tanks and submarines.
Educating 380,000 children, many of whom are children from other Asean countries, is surely a nobler way of engendering awe in one's neighbours.
John Draper is director, Social Survey Centre, College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen University. Peerasit Kamnuansilpa is founder and former dean of the College of Local Administration.