Thailand confronts a growing crisis with over 3.5 million orphaned or abandoned children, highlighting foster care as a vital alternative to limited adoption options and institutional living.
Care for Children, a UK-based non-profit, collaborates with the Thai Department of the Children and Youth to establish and expand a national foster care system, aiming to place vulnerable children in loving family environments.
Since 2012, the project has trained administrators and families across Thailand, developing core infrastructure for sustainable care and is now focused on raising national awareness to recruit more foster parents.
Foster care provides children with the crucial stability, love, and individual attention of a family, promoting their healthy development while simultaneously easing the burden on crowded government shelters.
Thailand's Education Ministry is implementing a four-pronged strategy to address its students' below-average performance in PISA 2025 and tackle significant educational inequality.
The plan prioritizes closing performance gaps by increasing funding for small and low-income schools, overhauling the curriculum to foster critical thinking, and adopting a data-driven management system to reduce teacher workload.
Key initiatives include enhancing school safety, combating cyberbullying, and expanding mental health support through peer-to-peer networks, recognizing the severe impact of distress on academic performance.
An education expert advises verifying if PISA improvements stem from structural changes, advocating for a revived STEM curriculum with practical 'learn by doing' methods, and urging bureaucratic reform to link teacher evaluations to student development.