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