Rights and opportunity to education The case study of migrant children at mae sai border area in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this study are (1) to find out the causes and barriers to the education accession of migrant children at the Mae Sai border area between the Thailand-Myanmar border, (2) to study how Thailand has been striving to improve education accession for migrant children , and (3) to analyze how the Thailand’s National Human Rights Plans has impacted migrant children’s education, to highlight the critical success that Thai government should continue to do and, make a recommendation plan for the factors to improve. The samples were divided into 2 groups: the quantitative sample consisted of 222 migrant children and 12 government officials in Mae Sai District, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand; Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to find frequency and percentage values. and analyzed the data by synthesizing data separately for each issue for qualitative data. The study found that parent movement, lack of motivation for study, language and culture differences, and budget issues are the four main barriers which obstruct migrant children from accessing to education system. This study covers the rights for education for migrant children, primarily from Myanmar, in the Chiang Rai-Tachileik border, as a model for the migrants in Thailand. This study finds out that the development of G and P code system allow more opportunity for migrant children to access to Thai’s Public school as well as the establish of the alternative school which help to give more choice in education are two effective actions that government should further continue. It is suggested that such research at a national level be done to better support all rights to education according to Thailand's Education for All policy.