Decentralization of the Financing and Administration of Public Secondary Schools in Thailand: A Case Study in Chiang Mai

The research ‘Decentralization of the Financing and Administration of Public Secondary Schools in Thailand: a Case Study in Chiang Mai’ aimed at investigating the current secondary education from financial and management perspectives with a case study of a school in Chiang Mai. The methodology for data collection consists of interviews and documentary research. Interviews were conducted on 1 Deputy Director of Finance Management and 4 teachers at Yupparaj School whom were key informants, and 2 Deputy Directors of Chiang Mai Education Service Area 34. Since the National Education Act in 1999 which emphasizes decentralization of education and financial management on a per-student basis, funding was allocated directly to Education Service Areas in the form of block grants and later on distributed to schools. The case of Yupparaj School which is a large well-known school in Chiang Mai Province is the case study for this research. In terms of financing, Yupparaj School as the large size school and reputation so the school receives a large amount of total government subsidies on education per student each year (THB 52 million in 2014). Another aspect is the school’s financial management in that the school is capable of finding external sources of funding i.e. donations, selling self-branded bottled water, letting food stalls, and managing its own Trust Fund, the school director, school administration committee and alumni association are crucial key factors for raising external funding. In terms of school administration, Yupparaj School as other schools in Thailand operate on the basis of school-based management, director of the school has a certain amount of authority in administration. A school needs to have a committee called school administrative committee which control the budget allocation to projects by each department. Moreover, the committee is responsible for finding external source of funding. Decentralization of financial policy is benefit for large size school and reputation, on the other hand, small schools, which have less students, do not have enough budgets to operate school efficiently.Group B: Quality of Education and Educational Polic

Collaborative project-based learning to train students for conducting the training project for older adults

This research aimed to study the results of collaborative project-based learning by students studying the training technique course to conduct training programs for older adults in state home care in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The population consisted of 40 undergraduate students from different faculties and years. The instruments used for data collection consisted of the lesson plan of the training technique course, student behavior form, journal form after teaching, student products, student reflection journals, the questionnaire to gauge the level of satisfaction of students, writing and presenting reflections on students’ learning, and training evaluation based on the level of satisfaction of the older adults. The research separated students into two groups based on different faculties, each group was composed of 20 students, and they could learn better in a small group. Data were analyzed by using content analysis, statistical calculation, and percentage, and were presented in the form of a description and table. The findings showed the results of the collaborative project-based learning to train students for conducting training projects for older adults successful. The students had a change in their attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and experience in conducting training, their satisfaction showed at the highest level (97.50%). Students were satisfied with the project-based learning at the highest level (90%), and especially the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience from conducting training programs at the highest level (95%). The older adults’ satisfaction from participating in two training programs conducted by the students was at the highest level (100%) too

The Organizational, Professional and Social Condition Perceived by Novice Teachers

Part of the formation of teacher professional identity is caused by the organizational, professional and social condition perceived by novice teachers. An international collaboration project involving seven countries across African and Asian region was set up under the name of Group C African Asian Dialogue Project in order to survey professional identity among teachers in the respected countries. This article focused on the first dimension of the research collaboration endeavor which is to study the organizational, professional and social condition perceived by novice teachers in Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam. Novice teachers were chosen as the samples of the study as they are in the crucial position in coping with the transition from being considered as preservice teachers to in-service teachers. The challenges arise when they have to accommodate with what they have learnt in the classroom at the university with the challenges and the realities in the school setting to rationalize the significance of professional identities among the novice teachers. The findings of this study are reported based on the percentage response distribution of each items asked in the questionnaire. The results showed that there are some uniformity and variability on how novice teachers perceive their organizational, professional and social condition in the context of their professional identity.Group C: Teacher Professional Development・Work in this project was funded by a grant funded by Universiti Sains Malaysia, Research University Grant under the account number 1001/PGURU/816280. ・Work in this project was supported by The Network of the “Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Educational Development” (A-A Dialogue) ・This work was supported by the Vietnam National University, Hanoi research fund [grant number QG.16.85]