As the election campaign heats up, political parties are fiercely competing to win votes by offering generous cash handouts, raising concerns about their impact on the country’s fiscal discipline for the incoming administration. Such concerns are warranted. Yet the focus on the post-election financial burden should not overshadow the outgoing administration’s last-minute budget spending for […]
School uniform and hairstyle rules are part and parcel of Thailand’s education.Three years ago, groups that called themselves “progressive students” started to challenge the stiff rules, calling for the state to respect their rights to make their own decisions. The staunch campaign caused the Ministry of Education (MOE) to ease its rules on hairstyles, allowing […]
Chiang Mai has repeatedly been named the world’s most air-polluted city this year. Not exactly a title to be envious about. The city was hit hard by PM2.5 ultra-fine dust on March 31. IQair.com, an air quality reporting website, reported Chiang Mai had an air quality index of 320 with an ultra-fine PM2.5 dust level […]
The Thai economy will face many headwinds but also tailwinds next year, mainly from the global economy and geopolitical tensions. In 2022, the Thai economy slowly recovered from the Covid pandemic as lockdowns ended and the economy was reopened to international travel. After contracting by more than 6% in 2020, Thailand’s real gross domestic product […]
Despite the government’s bravado about the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) being the country’s economic powerhouse, one important question still gets an elusive answer: Has the EEC fulfilled its promise of protecting the environment? The environmental concern is valid. Take the Eastern Seaboard, for example — the location of heavy industry as well as the Map […]
The year 2022 comes with a few challenges for Thailand that require due preparations. First among them are the economic disadvantages of the elderly which are set to grow more serious. According to the UN World Population Prospects, Thailand is an early bird among developing nations which has now entered an aged society with about […]
Want children to learn? Encourage them to ask questions. Better still, help them to get the answers. This should be a norm in schools. Sadly, fostering a questioning mind is an exception rather than the rule in the Thai education system. But some exceptional schools in Satun province in southern Thailand offer a glimmer of […]
Air pollution is a persistent, deadly problem in Thailand. Time after time we watched as thick white smog rolled through the maze of roads to settle among buildings. We knew something was very wrong. After all, clean air should not be visible. We have been living with air pollution, PM2.5, and have worn N95 masks […]
Struggling to make ends meet during the coronavirus pandemic, many people have turned to their home kitchens to sell home-cooked food online. Imagine the shock when tax officials knock on their doors. This is what happened to a family which sold fresh orange juice from their home kitchen recently. The incident made headlines and sent […]
Somchai Jitsuchon The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that started December last year has sparked a new round of public concerns about increasing health risks and severe social and economic repercussions. This new outbreak, however, is different from when the first wave hit Thailand last year. This time around, the number of infected people is […]
