Thailand
My contact is one
of my husband’s co-worker’s wives. She has taught in Thailand for a couple of
years. I was not able to get in touch with her before this assignment. In hopes
of staying in contact with her for future assignments I researched Thailand’s
poverty (I could not get the childhoodpoverty.org site to work).
Thailand’s total
population is 67.01 million as of 2013. In 2011 the poverty headcount ratio at
the national poverty line was 13.2% of the population. Project Thailand provided statistics from 2010:
6.1 million Thai
people live below the national poverty line
1.26% of people
live on less than $1 a day and 25.2% live on less than $2 a day
854,000 people are
living with HIV and AIDS
2.8 million people
are prostitutes (1/3 are thought to be children sold into trade)
Three insights I
learned from my research are that the income level in Thailand is upper middle
income, that the poverty headcount ratio at the national poverty line has
decreased over the last four years (2007-20.9%, 2008-20.5%, 2009-19.1%,
2010-16.9%, 2011-13.2%), and that attendance in early childhood education
2005-2012 of the poorest 20%, 54.8% attend and of the richest 20%, 77.6% attend.
I found the early childhood education numbers very interesting. Out of the
poorest 20% of people in Thailand half attend early childhood education
organizations/programs.
References
The World Bank.
(2014). Data-Thailand. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/country/thailand
Project Thailand.
(2010). Poverty Statistics. Retrieved from https://projectthailand.net/2010/05/14/poverty-in-thailand/
Unicef. (2013).Thailand
Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/Thailand_statistics.html
Very interesting facts. I am curious to know what attributed to the national poverty line decrease from 2007-2011. Perhaps you can find that out during the course of the class after you speak to your Thailand contact. I am glad to see the numbers regarding early childhood education school attendance--even for the poor. I look forward to learning more in the coming weeks about what's happening in the field in early childhood education in Thailand.
ReplyDeleteThose are some interesting statistics to look at. I would be more interested to learn about why their early childhood educational system seems to have a big role in their country. I think it is great that you have someone close to you that can share with you information from another country. I hope you get in contact with her and learn more to share with us. Thanks for sharing!
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