Thailand's hidden school bribery system
bribing rich children into good schools

By Jon Fernquest

The hidden bribes that some parents are expected to pay to school administrators to get their children into the best schools is the subject of today's editorial in the Bangkok Post (Read original article on the investigation).

Here is the editorial in full:

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EDITORIAL

Paying dearly for knowledge

Anyone who believes the school "tea money" system can be stopped with the arrest of one or two school directors, will be fooling himself.

All education ministers have looked the other way, probably realising that since the Education Ministry can hardly afford any support for the schools, it should not stop the schools from tapping their own resources.

DSI crackdown on school bribes

Now, enter the maverick: the Department of Special Investigations. The DSI has announced that it is at present probing the pae jia system at well-known schools in Bangkok, after having received many complaints and evidence.

Any state officials found involved are liable to a minimum five-year imprisonment because the Education Ministry prohibits any schools from demanding "donations" in exchange for enrolment of the donors' children.

Pae jia is a Chinese term; it was the immigrant Chinese merchants who first used this method to get their children into well-known schools. When you don't have the right connections, you simply bribe your way through. Today, pae jia has become normal practice among all parents vying for a seat at well-known schools for their kids.

One of the reasons behind tea money is the law of demand and supply. Where good schools are in short supply, such seats of learning will go to the highest bidder. So, as long as the Education Ministry fails to standardise school quality through proper and sufficient support, there will be always parents willing to pay for what they think is the best education for their children.

Making things transparent

Ask the parents about the pae jia system, and many will acknowledge that they completely understand the schools' financial needs; it is the lack of transparency which opens the way to corruption. Parents do not like the hush-hush manner surrounding the so-called "school donations", which makes them feel as if they are criminals. They also dislike the humiliation of being at the mercy of school directors.

Ideally, there should not be any pae jia. But since this remains a far-fetched hope due to the large gap in education quality, many parents want the process to be open and straightforward. They want to know how much money goes into which projects the schools are undertaking to develop standards. Better still, they want the school donations to be tax-deductible since the government gives schools only meagre support.

The Education Ministry should also reconsider its policy of capping tuition fees. Struggling with budget shortages, schools are forced to seek extra cash through special "donations" or extra-curricular activities.

What the proper fees should be, however, should not be decided by the Education bigwigs, but should be worked out by the community together with parents and school administrators, in order to maximise common resources.

Declaring it illegal has only made it worse

There are lessons to be learned. The amount of pae jia has skyrocketed since the Education Ministry pronounced it illegal. Because the stakes are higher, the techniques of demanding tea money have also become more subtle - in order to circumvent the law, which states that "donations" are illegal only when they take place before school starts (in exchange for seats for new students), not after the students have been admitted.

The DSI's witchhunt will doubtless cause the pae jia fees to go higher. Without transparency in school donations and a standardisation of school quality through sufficient state support, tea money and corruption at schools are here to stay.


(Source: Bangkok Post, op-ed section, 28-11-08, EDITORIAL, Paying dearly for knowledge, link)

Posted by Jon Fernquest at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)