Opposition MP urges the authorities to increase funding for education in order to lower attrition levels.
Discussed: 20 Jun 2024 at 20: 14
According to an opposition MP, the government is not paying enough attention to the urgent need for additional resources to stop millions of individuals from leaving the educational system because they are short on money.
Paramee Waichongcharoen, a checklist- MP from the Move Forward Party, raised the issue during the discussion on the 2025 governmental budget expenses in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
According to Paramee, an estimated 1.02 million children have chosen to drop out of school or choose not to pursue higher education because of poverty, according to a report released recently by the Equitable Education Fund ( EEF ).
Just about 2 million of the 3 million students from really poor people have had access to state funding for their education, compared to 3 million others who are currently at risk of facing the same death. The rest are on the verge of permanently leaving the educational program, according to the opposition MP, who was a tutor before entering politics.
According to Paramee, 12.45 % of students from families considered to be extremely poor last year decided not to continue their education to the bachelor degree of college.
The state is now giving those organizations that are working to remove those disparities less money than they need, the MP said in opposition to its earlier pledge made in congress that it would immediately address those disparities in terms of education opportunities.
The Student Loan Fund ( SLF ) requested 19 billion baht in government aid for the 2024 fiscal year because it had a liquidity issue for the first time in a decade. But the government handed over just 800 million ringgit, said Paramee.
The state has refused to contract, and the bank has requested 5 billion baht for governmental 2025.
Paramee urged the government to provide a standard amount of free training so that students and their families not longer have to pay for any additional related teaching expenses.
The MP made the point that Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat claimed there was still sufficient money set aside that could be used to offset the SLF’s need for funding if it did really need it.
The MP claimed that the fund’s cash-flow issue was brought on by an earlier SLF Act change that saw the default interest rate be retroactively reduced from 18 % to 0.5 %.
The SLF had to borrow money to pay back a large number of lenders who had already made more money than they had to. It owes those loans approximately 1 billion Baht.