Six assessment and test results reveal the crisis in Thai education: inequality and the risk of falling behind globally, trailing many ASEAN countries.
The Equitable Education Fund (EEF) has released a report highlighting five key findings on resource allocation in the education system and human capital development, revealing that global educational assessments reflect problems in Thai education when the "human capital" of Thai children is unequal, creating widening educational gaps and still lagging behind their global peers, risking being left behind amid waves of development and change (see: Five Findings Reflecting the Crisis in Thai Education).
The report includes seven noteworthy statistics from assessments and evaluations, which Thairath Online summarizes as follows.
1. Students in small schools have lower learning quality; significantly lower O-NET scores.
The latest National Educational Test (O-NET) results for Grade 6 in the 2024 academic year show that students in small schools (with no more than 119 students), mostly located in remote areas and with many disadvantaged or poor students, scored significantly lower on O-NET across all subjects compared to students in medium-sized (120–719 students), large (720–1,679 students), and extra-large schools (1,680 or more students), especially in English, where small schools averaged 27.96 points, while extra-large schools averaged 48.04 points.
2. Rural children lag in science, math, and reading skills behind urban children by three academic years.
The 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, testing 15-year-olds, found that students in rural schools (communities with fewer than 3,000 people) had lower competency levels than students in urban and suburban schools in mathematics, science, and reading. Rural students scored on average 53 to 70 points lower, a difference equivalent to about three years of lost learning.
3. Poor children have 2.5 times fewer chances to continue to university.
Tracking students from the poorest 15% of households nationwide, linked with data from the Office of the Higher Education Commission and the Council of University Presidents of Thailand, revealed that in the 2021 academic year, 167,989 poor students graduated from Grade 9, but only 81.5% continued to Grade 10 or equivalent. By the 2025 academic year, only 21,079 of these students, or 12.5%, enrolled in higher education. This is lower than the 32% university enrollment rate through the centralized admission system (TCAS) for all students nationwide, a difference of more than 2.5 times.
4. Thai children’s thinking skills decline despite more schooling.
Research by the EEF in collaboration with the Research Institute for Policy Evaluation and Design (RIPED) at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce followed a sample group of young children living in rural areas of Northeast Thailand from early childhood through primary and secondary education. It found that these children had IQ levels below the standard score of 100 and, worryingly, an average IQ decline despite increasing age and education level. The first measurement was 92, while the final measurement was 82, which is highly unusual because IQ scores typically remain stable or close to previous values each year. This decline suggests that attending school does not necessarily guarantee learning.
This issue worsens when education is "inflexible," failing to adapt to students’ learning styles or interests, causing children to become "bored," lose motivation, and merely sit in class. When exam results show failure, some may drop out of the education system altogether.
5. Thai education is not truly "free."
Although the government provides subsidies through the 15-year free education program, there remain "hidden costs" that parents must pay themselves, with poor households paying an average of 9,420 baht more per student annually. Most expenses are for tuition fees, transportation, and breakfast costs, in that order.
While per-student subsidies may seem equal on the surface, they do not reflect reality and do not follow the principle of "vertical equity," since schools vary in shortages and costs. For example, small schools in remote mountainous areas have higher expenses than regular schools.
In the 2021 fiscal year, of every 100 baht allocated for education, 22 baht was for educational equity, and when broken down further, only 4 baht was allocated for vertical equity to reduce gaps for disadvantaged children, which is insufficient to lessen inequality in Thailand.
6. Thai children lack future skills.
An analysis of PISA trends over the past 20 years shows that in the latest 2022 assessment, Thailand scored its lowest since joining in 2000, with a continuous decline since 2012. Scores in basic skills (math, science, reading) were below the OECD average and lower than many ASEAN neighbors such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. This reflects a lack of readiness to face global challenges.
Beyond basic skills, deeper analysis of specific skills such as Global Competence, which measures the ability to understand and engage with complex global issues and collaborate with people from different cultures, shows that Thailand ranked 21st out of 27 countries participating in the assessment.
Meanwhile, Creative Thinking, a foundational skill for innovation and economic development, placed Thailand 51st out of 61 countries tested, with scores significantly below the OECD average and behind ASEAN neighbors such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei.