Keele Research Repository

Thailand’s education system faces a problem with distinct disparities between levels of regional education management. Consequently, urban areas seem to have obvious perceivable advantages over rural area settings. In response to this problem, the central government has authorized the local government to supervise and support local education settings including early years education and child caregivers who have the responsibility to provide education and care for early years leaners in the form of Child Development Centres. The purpose of this current research is to investigate the knowledge, understanding and practices, including the factors and challenges which impact upon child caregivers’ day-to-day performances regarding education and care provision for disadvantaged young learners from hill tribe communities who attend the rural Child Development Centres in Thailand.
A qualitative approach was employed to collect data from twenty-three child caregivers and seven educational officers. Two investigative methods were used in this research: interviews and direct observations. The interviews were conducted with all the participants including child caregivers and education officers, followed by observations of four child caregivers. The results provided indicate that the child caregivers perceived themselves as performing several roles alongside their main responsibilities as education providers, while being simultaneously challenged by issues including regional deprivation, underfunding for learning resources, and insufficient support from local authorities. Child caregivers revealed obtained by a range of means external support from local communities and parents to meet their resource requirements. In addition, to a full discussion of the findings from the empirical work several suggestions have been made to the central government and local authorities in order to improve the quality of early years education management delivered within rural CDCs.