Parit Watjanasinthu debated the 2027 budget, criticizing the 26 billion baht education platform mega-project for lacking direction and suggesting procurement collusion that favors a single capital network dominating almost all contracts. He urged the Ministers of Education and Higher Education to conduct a comprehensive retrospective review of the system.
At 17:24 on 30 June 2026 GMT+7, the House of Representatives convened to consider the draft Budget Appropriation Act for fiscal year 2027. Parit Watjanasinthu, party-list MP from the People’s Party, participated in the debate concerning the budgets of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI). Regarding skill development, he noted that in the past, large government budgets were usually associated with construction projects like buildings, expressways, and dams. However, nowadays, major government projects also include digital initiatives, which are less visible to the naked eye. He cited a massive learning platform mega-project worth tens of billions of baht, initiated during the time the Bhumjaithai Party managed the Ministry of Education and MHESI, comprising at least four major projects still reflected in the 2027 budget draft.
1. The Basic Learning Promotion Project Anytime, Anywhere, with a budget of about 17 billion baht, includes developing learning platforms for primary and secondary students and funding tablet distribution to over 500,000 upper-secondary students.
2. The Skill/Credit Portfolio Project by the Ministry of Education, building another platform for primary and secondary students, with a budget of around 3 billion baht, focusing on guidance and credit accumulation.
3. The Skill/Credit Portfolio Project under MHESI, creating a learning platform for at least 1.6 million university students, with a budget of about 5 billion baht.
4. The Central Credit Bank System Project by MHESI, with a combined budget of over 300 million baht, developing a platform for students seeking credit transfer between institutions or education systems.
These four projects alone total over 26 billion baht, equivalent to building ten Office of the Auditor General buildings or matching the combined annual budgets of five ministries: Commerce, Industry, Tourism and Sports, Culture, and Energy. Although these projects aim to be beneficial, assessing whether this mega-project will be cost-effective for taxpayers requires examining early results.
Initial feedback from parts of the project already underway is most evident in the NDLP platform development under the Basic Learning Promotion Project, which has invested over 2 billion baht and been in development for more than 20 months. It is currently deployed in over 1,000 pilot schools nationwide, but teacher feedback indicates the outcomes may not justify the budget spent.
Teaching materials should include thousands of clips, but many teachers report the platform lacks comprehensive content for classroom topics. Features are not designed with an understanding of teachers' workflows. When teachers try to design flexible course structures, the system does not allow entering such information. Furthermore, support is slow; schools cannot edit data themselves and must wait months for central fixes. Training sessions are poorly organized, with notices sent only three days before, so few teachers can attend.
"I understand these problems are not beyond repair, but before the government asks Parliament to approve billions more to continue this mega-project, it must clearly explain why previous implementation has been so problematic and how it will prevent failure in the future," Parit said.
He added that one observable problem is the unclear policy direction. The current government, especially the Minister of Education, has not clearly communicated how this mega-project will be utilized. The minister’s statements have been inconsistent. For example, before elections, a party representative argued for distributing tablets only to schools, teachers, and students who truly need them. But now, the minister from the same party is pushing to distribute tablets with a budget of tens of billions without explanation.
Last week, the minister announced a review of the Skill/Credit Portfolio under the Office of the Basic Education Commission due to concerns over cost-effectiveness and transparency. Yet a week later, the 2027 budget doubles funding for this project from about 1.6 billion to over 3.1 billion baht. Regarding the global problem of children’s excessive screen time, the minister recently expressed a desire to regulate mobile phone use and screen time in schools, especially short video clips that may affect children’s concentration. However, just five days prior, the minister announced a collaboration with TikTok to produce two-minute clips promoting learning.
Regardless of policy confusion and inconsistency, the biggest issue with this mega-project may be lack of transparency in procurement, raising questions about who truly benefits. Nearly every TOR in these projects contains suspicious elements.
For example, the NDLP project under the Basic Learning Promotion umbrella is divided into two phases with four contracts. Each phase has one contract for platform development and one for media production. Surprisingly, both contracts in phase one are labeled as consultancy projects, despite their work being platform development and media production with little difference between phases.
"A detailed look at phase one TOR shows hiring 475 consultants, a number and job types suggesting these are not just advisors but teams hired to develop the platform and produce media. Labeling phase one as consultancy narrows competition because only consultants registered with the Ministry of Finance can bid," Parit explained.
Similarly, the MHESI Skill/Credit Portfolio project’s original TOR, recently ordered for revision by the minister, shows suspicious bundling of contracts and media production monopolies that may stifle competition. Selection criteria and work milestones appear designed for bidders with prior insider knowledge. Contracts also require the government to lease platforms from private companies instead of owning them.
The MHESI Credit Bank project also raises concerns. Its TOR includes conditions identical to those in the TH-AI Passport project, requiring at least 6,000 digital screens in convenience stores and 30 screens at Suvarnabhumi Airport for promotion. This is questionable given the much narrower target group of students needing credit transfer between institutions. "The TORs I’ve presented raise increasing doubts about who benefits from this mega-project," Parit said.
Parit continued that analyzing companies involved might reveal answers. Among 12 sub-projects requiring procurement, 10 have already been tendered, involving 23 companies. Company A won 5 out of these 10 contracts. Though founded in 2017, Company A saw a major turning point in 2024, the mega-project’s first year, with a name change and a 25-fold registered capital increase, resulting in a 40-fold annual revenue rise compared to before 2024, likely solely from government projects. This suggests Company A may have been established specifically to support this mega-project.
Further analysis shows Company A is a partnership between major shareholders of Companies I and J, sharing the same office as Company J. Examining shareholding structures of other companies awarded contracts reveals that Companies B and G are also connected to this network, with Company I as a major shareholder in both.
In summary, five companies linked to Companies I and J form a single network or empire that appears to dominate all contracts in this mega-project. Even the two sub-projects not yet tendered involve this network in setting benchmark prices. Not only do winners rotate within this empire, but even competing evaluators belong to the same group, such as Company D, known for vending machines but with no evident learning platform experience, involved in four mega-project contracts.
This learning platform mega-project resembles a family reunion among capital groups within the same network, connected by financial ties and familiar neighbors regularly joining. This returns us to the question of who truly benefits: is it designed to enhance skills and income for the public or to increase state projects and profits for select capital groups?
"If the real goal is profit for certain capital groups, it’s no surprise many projects overlap within this mega-project, because duplicating projects and platforms simply increases profits for these groups," Parit said.
If the government insists on Parliament approving tens of billions more for this mega-project, it must clarify policy direction and implement measures guaranteeing transparency. Parit shared his visit to Singapore’s Skill Future project, where initial challenges included corruption—not necessarily procurement fraud, but course-related scams to embezzle funds. Even Singapore, ranked third globally in transparency, struggled with corruption. Thailand, ranked over 110th, should be even more concerned.
Parit concluded that although the new ministers of Education and MHESI have acknowledged these irregularities and ordered some TOR reviews, this is insufficient. Both ministers must conduct thorough retrospective audits and closely monitor these projects, even if it causes friction with government allies, to prevent tens of billions of taxpayers’ money from being stolen for the enrichment of a few under the guise of skill development.