Up to 60% of government budget funds allocated to some schools in the southernmost border provinces has been misused to support the southern insurgency movement, according to the military.
Lt Gen Piyawat Nakwanich, commander of the 4th Army, told a media briefing at the 46th Military Circle in Pattani province on Monday evening that about 700 million baht a year was being embezzled in Pattani alone.
"That affects the opportunities of 101,000 of the total 165,072 students and about 4,000 teachers in the province each year," he said.
Lt Gen Piyawat said the government allocated 1.26 billion baht annually for education in Pattani province, but only 40% of the money was actually used as intended.
"Some schools support violent attacks. Some teachers distort teachings and lead students to hate the government and discriminate against people of other religions. And then some students are chosen and become the perpetrators of the violence," he said.
Searches at five schools in Pattani this year had found leaflets written to create public disunity, gas cylinders and fire extinguishers suspiciously hidden away in places they should not have been kept, and documents showing support for perpetrators of violence portraying themselves as teachers, he said.
Some local suppliers conspired with the embezzlers, issuing fake receipts to support fraudulent spending by local school management, he said.
Maj Gen Jatuporn Klampasut, commander of the Pattani ad hoc unit, said embezzlement at private schools in the five southern border provinces had been going on for decades and local education authorities had been overly reluctant to investigate it.
"There are more than 200 religious schools and investigations have uncovered corruption in at least 100 of them," he said.