Border patrol police will take over teaching the Thai language to children in the far South from 2023, and launch new economic development projects in the southernmost region.
Gen Kongcheep Tantrawanich, spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, said the change was agreed upon at a meeting of a government committee on development in the deep South chaired by Gen Prawit at Government House on Thursday.
The meeting acknowledged a plan to shift responsibility for teaching Thai from the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre to Border Patrol Police in 2023.
The change was needed because many children of school age in the region were not getting an education and were illiterate, Gen Kongcheep said.
Teaching the Thai language was an important policy, targeting young children to promote a peaceful and multicultural society, the spokesman said.
Border patrol police already ran about 200 schools in remote areas, sharing knowledge with local children who otherwise had little access to education.
The committee also resolved to proceed with a project to help Thai workers who returned to the far South during Covid-19 outbreaks.
The project had already helped 10,000 people and would expand to include 7,000 more by next March. It would enable people to work in their native provinces, work at factories outside the region, or get work at palm plantations in Malaysia, Gen Kongcheep said.
The committee also agreed to expand communal economic plantations at the level of sub-districts, promote international sports events and develop border checkpoints in the far South, with the aim to reduce poverty and end the violence in the region, the spokesman said.