Thailand

Thailand’s education system stands at a crossroads. Significant investment has widened access to education and the country performs relatively well in international assessments compared with its peers. But the benefits have not been universally distributed and Thailand has not received the return on its spending on education that it might have expected. This report encourages Thailand to focus on four priority areas to prepare students from all backgrounds for a fast-changing world. The first is to set clear, common standards for all students through a revised and improved curriculum. The second priority is to build capacity to reliably assess students across the full range of competencies needed for success in life and in learning. Third, Thailand needs to develop a holistic strategy to prepare teachers and school leaders to deliver education reform, including implementing the revised curriculum, and to tackle teaching shortages in the most deprived areas. The final challenge is to create a comprehensive information and communications technology strategy to equip all Thailand’s schools, teachers and students for the 21st century.

Thailand’s remarkable social and economic development since the 1970s has resulted in a steep and steady
increase in energy consumption and, as a consequence, a rising dependency on imported fuels and associated
exposure to international commodity prices. Electricity demand is currently concentrated in the Bangkok
metropolitan area and driven by a large industrial and manufacturing base and significant amounts of tourism.
But Thailand is a growing country with a large middle class, and a structural transition may change the nature
and shape of electricity demand.

Thai energy policy is driven by three pillars: security, affordability and environmental sustainability. Concerns
about fuel diversity underlie all three pillars and as a result are major factors in long-term plans for power
generation. Thailand’s electricity sector is at a turning point similar to that of many International Energy Agency
(IEA) member countries, as it transitions to low-carbon power sources. Thailand must decide how to finance
massive investments in new generation assets, transmission and distribution networks, as well as the steps to
improve system operations and scale up energy efficiency.

Partner Country Series – Thailand Electricity Security Assessment 2016 analyses the challenges the country faces,
including how regulatory and market arrangements can adapt to best realise the opportunities from potentially
disruptive distributed resources like wind and solar photovoltaics. This study draws on IEA member countries’
experiences as well as Agency analysis to recommend policy improvements for a more secure and sustainable
electricity sector in Thailand.

This publication is the first case study of the Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia project. The project explores how to promote green growth in fast-growing cities in Asia by examining policies and governance practices that encourage greening and competitiveness in a rapidly expanding economy. It is part of the OECD Green Growth Studies series, which will culminate in a synthesis report on Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia.

This report analyses the economic and environmental performance and green growth policy practices of Thailand’s Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR). As a dynamic and emerging market economy, Thailand has recorded strong growth over recent decades and is expected to continue to do so, but this growth has come at a high environmental cost. The challenge is therefore to improve environmental outcomes while supporting continued growth in output and living standards. Thailand's government and BMA have taken steps to encourage green growth in the BMR, but much untapped potential remains, particularly in the following areas: land use and transport, renewable energy and energy efficiency in buildings, and water resources and solid waste management. Resilience to floods is also an urgent cross-cutting issue that requires further attention.

This publication contains statistics on fisheries in OECD member countries (with the exception of Austria, Israel and Slovenia) and some non-member economies (Argentina, Colombia, Latvia, Chinese Taipei, Thailand) from 2006 to 2013. Data provided concern fishing fleet capacity, employment in fisheries, fish landings, aquaculture production, recreational fisheries, government financial transfers, and imports and exports of fish.