January 16, 2009
An inauguration/handover ceremony was held under the auspices of Wat Dong Jaeng School in Ratchaburi Province, for the project “Educating Burmese children in Ratchaburi”, on January 15, 2009. The ceremony was attended by H.E. the Ambassador of Japan to the Kingdom of Thailand Mr. Kyoji Komachi, and the Provincial Governor, Dr. Sumet Chailetwanitchakun, who delivered congratulatory speeches.
The project is to expand the existing school facilities and to provide a vehicle for transporting children. Under collaboration between the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) and Wat Dong Jaeng School, the project was formulated and implemented, and the Government of Japan extended Grant Assistance under the Grassroots Human Security Projects scheme (GGP).
Ratchaburi province borders with Myanmar, and many migrant workers from Myanmar are engaged in the construction and agricultural industries, totaling 40,000 in the central area of the province alone, together with 1,000 children.
Several years ago, the Thai Government adopted a policy of accepting all foreign or stateless children in Thai schools. However, most schools are not showing a positive attitude toward this policy, due to budget constraints, the language barrier, a shortage of classrooms and teachers, a lack of means of transportation, discrimination, and so on. Burmese children are thus forced to be concentrated only in schools following the policy. Consequently, there is a chronic shortage of teaching materials, classrooms and teachers at those schools.
In this situation, LPN has continuously supported Burmese children in gaining access to education.
Meanwhile, Wat Dong Jaeng School in the same province has shown an understanding of LPN’s activities, and started accepting Burmese children. During normal school hours, they study the same subjects as other Thai children. And after school, they learn the Burmese language. However, Wat Dong Jaeng School has been facing a shortage of classrooms due to a doubling of student numbers. Most of the Burmese children attending the school are from poor families that cannot pay transportation for their children.
Besides, some children even live as far as 20km from the school. Thus, LPN provides daily transportation for the children with a rented vehicle.
To improve this difficult situation, the Japanese Government has provided a total of 2,252,500 baht for a school facility housing four class rooms and also for a transportation vehicle.
The Japanese Government is willing to continue its support for projects which contribute to the expansion of educational opportunities and the enhancement of human security, thus directly benefiting the people at grass-roots level, through its Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects scheme (GGP).
