2012 New School Year: Parents Spending Carefully amid Rising Cost of Living (Business Brief No. 3284)

Obviously, education is always a major concern for people, particularly those whose children are in school, as they have to allocate relatively large amount of money for educational cost. KResearch expects that expenses for the 2012 school year for parents in Bangkok should be around THB22.5 billion, rising around 6 percent YoY, due to increases in tuition, the cost of living as well as expenses for extra-curricular activities and tutoring courses, thus resulting in higher burdens for parents.

New school year expenses amid a rising cost of living force some parents to economize in order to have sufficient funds for their children's education, e.g., for tuition, tutoring and special courses which are regarded as important costs. In an effort to reduce these costs, they may cut non-essential expenses to avoid impact on education, e.g., on school uniforms and stationery. Meanwhile, recreational spending for the family, such as travel, shopping and partying is likely to be cut.

As most parents find tutoring courses valuable, accounting for a relatively large proportion of educational expenses, the government and educational institutions should improve mandatory curricula and upgrade teaching techniques for reducing the need for supplementary courses. This would effectively reduce education-related costs for parents. Coursework should be designed to meet the needs of the job market and brace for the upcoming AEC integration in 2015. Also, the curricula should be revised, along with human resource potentiality development for our enhanced competitiveness within ASEAN.

Nevertheless, AEC membership will help broaden educational opportunities for Thailand, thanks to high potentiality of some educational institutions that meets international standards. Thus, Thailand may have a chance to become an educational hub of ASEAN in the future.