Educational experiences of foreign and stateless children in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand: Challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic

• In Event: Education for Equity

Proposal

Located in Southeast Asia, Thailand shares its borders with Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia. Chiang Rai Province is the northernmost close to Shan State of Myanmar and Bokeo Province of Laos. In Chiang Rai Province, there are various hill tribes living in villages in mountainous areas who do not necessarily have Thai nationality. However, regardless of nationality, the National Education Act of B.E. 2542 (1999) stipulates that all individuals shall have equal rights and opportunities to receive basic education provided by the State for at least 12 years. This law has been interpreted as the basis for enrolling foreign and stateless children in educational institutions in Thailand.

According to the 2019 educational statistics, Chiang Rai Province had a population of 1,292,130. Among this number, there were 117,832 non-Thai nationals which consisted of 9.12%. As for the foreign and stateless children, when enrolled in the schools in Thailand, they are registered under the G ID category, henceforth referred to as G ID children. There were 8,972 G ID children in Chiang Rai Province out of a total of 128,693 students at the pre-school, primary, and secondary education levels, representing 6.97% of the total students.

Despite the National Education Act of B.E. 2542 (1999), the acceptance of foreign and stateless students initially was not positive, and the response of local education authorities was mixed. The Thai Government made a cabinet decision on May 5, 2005, clearly stating the guideline for actively accepting foreign and stateless children in the Thai school education system. Based on this decision, in September 2005, the Ministry of Education formulated the "Guidelines for Education for Non-Registered Residents and Non-Thai Nationals" and notified each school of the guidelines to facilitate the acceptance of these students. Under the guidelines, (1) all children are guaranteed educational opportunities, (2) children can study up to the higher education level, (3) a certificate is awarded upon completion, and (4) each educational institution receives the same amount of per capita educational assistance as the Thai students, and so on.

This paper focuses on Chiang Rai Province's area bordering Shan State, Myanmar. Shan State is an autonomous region ruled by the Shan people. It is considered a peripheral region by the Myanmar government. The Mae Sai-Tachileik border gate in Mae Sai City, Chiang Rai Province, is the site of active exchange of goods and people between the two countries. In Myanmar, the area near the border gate is an economically prosperous region, but slightly beyond the border is a remote area that is far from developed. The Myanmar government does not provide adequate schooling there. Therefore, people from the region attend schools in Thailand, betting on their future potential. Families with the financial ability send their children by crossing the border daily to schools. However, parents from less fortunate families leave their children with relatives who have moved to Thailand or are from the same village and send them to school. Parents from more disadvantaged families entrust their children to Christian or non-profit organizations and send them to schools in Thailand. At the same time, they live in dormitories run by these organizations. In some cases, when a school has a dormitory for children, the children are placed in the dormitory and taken care of from food, clothing, and shelter to education. The region's lack of quality basic education has driven foreign and stateless children to Thai schools. On another end, due to a low birth rate leading to an aging society, these children partially fill the Thai schools.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the foreign and stateless children went to the Thai schools either by border crossing or commuting from where they resided in Thailand. However, in February 2020, when the Thai Government announced a complete lockdown of border gates and, in March 2020, closure of all schools, these children could no longer cross the border. In a new semester that should have started in May 2020, the schools finally opened in July 2020 using three teaching-learning formats: on-site, on-air, and online. Several pre-caution measures had to be taken for the schools that wanted to provide on-site education, such as reducing student number per classroom. Therefore, students had to take turns going to school once every two days, and sometimes the schools also taught on Saturday. Many on-site students had to use blended learning methods on-site and online. Through the pandemic, the teaching-learning methods have expanded to five patterns by adding on-hand and on-demand. However, the G ID children were the most vulnerable groups amid the pandemic due to their household environment and financial disadvantage.

This research takes three schools in Chiang Rai Province as subjects of the study to identify challenges that the G ID children have faced in the COVID-19 pandemic using a qualitative research approach and conducting interviews with schools' administrators, teachers, children, and their parents. The first school is Ban Santikeeree Elementary School. This school is located in a village on the top of the Mae Fah Luang Mountain, 80 kilometers from the city. The school has 1,034 children as of April 2022. Among them, there are 131 G ID children. The second school is Ban Wiangphan Elementary School, located only 1.5 kilometers from the Mae Sai-Tachileik border gate. As of April 2021, the school has a total enrollment of 1,113 students. Of these, 108 are G ID children. The third school is Maesai Prasitsart Secondary School, located 2.1 kilometers from the Mae Sai-Tachileik border gate. Unlike the two schools mentioned above, the school is a national secondary school offering exclusively secondary education (three years of lower secondary and three years of upper secondary education), with 2,953 students, including 52 G ID students, as of April 2022. Find outs of the interviews conducted at these three schools will be discussed in detail in the full paper.

Authors

• Sunate Kampeeraparb, Nagoya University

• Thidawan Unkong, University of Phayao