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Executive Summary

Thailand has been facing inequality in various dimensions, including education, new

opportunity, and society. Therefore, equality becomes one of the key policies in the country’s
development in a 20-year period (2018-2037) under the National Strategy on Opportunity

Creation and Social Equality. Local government organizations will become important
mechanisms for creating educational equality. The College of Local Government

Development, King Prajadhipok’s Institute, has conducted a research project to promote the
roles of local government organizations in reducing inequality at the local level. The two

objectives of the research project are to strengthen local government organizations in creating
educational equality and to promote local government organizations in implementing projects

to enhance educational equality in the area. This action research contains these following
results.

First, the research project to develop local government organizations as mechanisms

in reducing inequality at the local level included 11 local administrative organizations: (1) Bang

Khrok Subdistrict Administrative Organization, Phetchaburi Province; (2) Na Khom Subdistrict
Administrative Organization, Nakhon Sawan Province; (3) Pa Kor Dum Subdistrict Municipality,
Chiang Rai Province; ( 4) Wichian Buri Municipality, Phetchabun Province; ( 5) Bangkadi

Municipality, Pathum Thani Province; (6) Lamphun Municipality, Lamphun Province; (7) Khao

Sam Yot Municipality, Lopburi Province; (8) Narathiwat Municipality, Narathiwat Province; (9)
Sakon Nakhon Municipality, Sakon Nakhon Province; (10) Yala City Municipality, Yala Province;
and (11) Pattani Provincial Administrative Organization, Pattani Province. Their organizational

potentials and local issues are varied.

Second, most of the pilot local government organizations encounter inequality issues:

(1) underprivileged children and poverty because of parents’ unstable occupations causing
relocation outside the area, no ownership of land for agriculture, inconsistent prices of

agricultural products, etc., especially in the COVID-19 epidemic; (2) underprivileged children
from broken families and divorced parents with insufficient care or under the care of the

elderly or grandparents; (3) underprivileged children because of disabilities causing barriers to
education, especially in poverty; (4) underprivileged children caused from their destructive

behaviors such as drug addiction, game addiction, pregnancy at school age, (5) statelessness
children with no access to formal education, especially in the 3 southern border provinces;
(6) a high number of students in one school because of inconsistent quality of education; (7)

insufficient quality of educational institutions according to the results of the national

VII