More than 360,000 children have been brought back to classrooms as the Education Ministry steps up efforts to get as many dropouts as possible back in school next year under the government's Thailand Zero Dropout policy.
A survey by the Ministry found that a total of 1,025,514 children aged 3-18 dropped out in 2024. Of them, 767,304 were Thai children, and the rest were the children of foreign nationals.
Of the Thai children, 365,231 or 47.6% were brought back to school, while the rest are still absent from the country's mandatory education system. For foreign children, 31,816 or 12.32% returned to school.
Education Minister Permpoon Chidchob said tackling the school dropout problem is part of efforts to promote educational equality under the government's Thai Zero Dropout campaign.
He said the ministry has introduced programmes to provide formal, non-formal, and informal education tailored to each child's needs and potential in order to bring dropouts back to school.
"We will ensure all Thai children receive compulsory education," Pol Gen Permpoon said.
Niyom Phaisopha, director of the basic education policy and planning bureau under the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec), said that apart from schools under the Education Ministry, other schools are supervised by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration or are private schools.
Mr Niyom also said if school dropouts want to continue their education but cannot return for some reason, Obec will take their education directly to their homes instead.
"Flexible curricula will be designed to suit their needs,'' he said.
