The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) has asked prestigious schools to curtail their Grade 7 enrollment figures, seeing as excessive recruiting at the Grade 7 (Mathayom 1) level leads to excessive competition at the Grade 10 (Mathayom 4) level.
Chinnapat Bhumirat, secretary-general of Obec, said that prestigious schools often recruit heavily at the Grade 7 level, but then, because of the smaller class sizes in higher grades, some of those recruited students are unable to continue their studies at the same school. He argues that by reducing the size of Grade 7 classes, many of the Kingdom’s most prestigious schools (of which there are 280) could avoid conflict later down the line.
The Bangkok Post reports that applications for enrollment in Grades 7 through 10 are open from today through March 18.
