Nationally769,201children and youth out of school
Tak Province59,554rank 2 in the country
In our municipality239children — our direct responsibility
Directly admissible80children aged 13–18
1 · Origin
From national policy to the duty of one school
In 2024 the Royal Thai Government launched Thailand Zero Dropout after identifying more than 1.02 million children and youth aged 3–18 outside the education system. Eleven agencies signed a memorandum to link data across ministries so that every child could be found individually and brought back to learning, with the Department of Learning Encouragement maintaining the national database.
The policy’s core idea is not to return every child to a conventional classroom, but to provide flexible, learner-centred education through the “One School, Three Forms” approach promoted jointly by the Ministry of Education and the Equitable Education Fund — an approach now being extended regionally as ASEAN Zero Dropout.
“A national policy only becomes real when someone on the ground takes responsibility for children one by one.”
2 · The local reality
We studied the real data before designing anything
Before writing a single line of plan, we analysed the national database down to sub-district level. Four findings changed our entire approach.
1) The bottleneck is not the classroom
Of 239 children in the municipal area, 235 are stuck at the very first step — they declined to share information or could not be located. Not one has yet consented to a full interview, so the system does not know what any individual child actually needs.
2) Two neighbourhoods, two different problems
In Rahaeng, all 114 children declined — a matter of trust and language. In Mai Ngam, all 62 could not be found at their recorded address — a matter of records. Sending the same kind of team to both would fail in at least one.
3) Most are undocumented
Seventy-four per cent are non-Thai or hold no civil registration. Thai law clearly guarantees their right to enrol, but a learner-identifier process must be in place — and the civil registration office belongs to the same municipality as our school.
4) The gap only local government can fill
Across the district, only one child has returned to a local-government school, against 36 under the national basic education commission. That gap is exactly what a municipal school can close — and the reason this initiative exists.
Source: DOLE national database, FY2025 survey round, retrieved 22 Sep 2026 ·
See the data and results → ·
Explore the whole dataset yourself →
3 · Our model
One School, Three Forms — a single school, three pathways
Section 15 of Thailand’s National Education Act B.E. 2542 (1999) allows a single institution to provide all three forms of education and to transfer credit between them.
Children move between forms without losing credit —
Informal → non-formal → formal, and back again when life changes — without ever being counted as “dropped out” a second time. This is the heart of the One School, Three Forms idea.
4 · Legal foundation
Every element rests on explicit legal authority
Three forms in one institutionNational Education Act B.E. 2542, Section 15
Credit transfer across forms, including work experienceSection 15, final paragraph
Local government may provide education and establish learning centresSections 12 and 18(3)
Mixed-age, mixed-grade, joint teaching and joint assessmentMinisterial Regulation on Learning Centres B.E. 2555, Clauses 2 and 10(2)
Undocumented and non-Thai children may enrol at any level using a G-codeMinistry of Education Announcement B.E. 2568 (2025), consistent with the Cabinet Resolution of 5 July 2005
Lifelong learning may carry formal qualificationLearning Encouragement Act B.E. 2566 (2023), Section 7
Twelve years of free, quality educationConstitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2560, Section 54
The best interests of the child, without discriminationChild Protection Act B.E. 2546, Section 22 · UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
5 · How it works
Six steps, each with a named owner
Delivered by the school’s four departments together with the municipality and local partners
Match the list to the real neighbourhoods
Overlay the national list on the municipality’s community map and local civil registry to establish precisely which children fall within our responsibility — planning department and technical team
Reach them with a team the community trusts
A three-part door-knocking team — school teacher, village health volunteer or community leader, and municipal officer — with Burmese and Karen interpreters, visiting in the evenings and at weekends when parents are actually home — student affairs department
Screen using the national standard codes
Record one of the ten national screening outcomes and establish civil status so that a learner identifier can be issued where needed — student affairs department
Design an individual learning plan
A case conference with the family and the municipality’s social worker selects the appropriate form, sets out credit transfer, and specifies the support to be provided — academic department
Begin learning and deliver support
Open the flexible classroom, arrange scholarships, materials and transport, and issue the identification or G-code with the municipal registration office — academic department and municipal registry
Follow up, and never close a case early
Monthly monitoring of attendance and credits earned. A case is not closed until the child has studied continuously for a full semester; any sign of dropping out again escalates it to urgent automatically — general administration and technical team
6 · The data system
We built our own tool, because fieldwork needs what the national system does not provide
The national system works well as a country-level registry, but it is not designed for a teacher’s daily work. We therefore built the TB1 Zero Dropout case management system on the school’s own website, using field codes identical to the national database so that data flows back without any conversion.
- One child, one case — always with a named teacher and a next action date
- Home visits logged from a phone in under a minute, with location and whether an interpreter was present
- The workflow advances automatically from what staff record, so no one has to memorise rules
- Flags any case untouched for more than 14 days or past its appointment date
- Exports in the national code format so that local results appear in national reporting
- Logs every access in compliance with personal data protection law
Why recording matters —
The figure of just one child returned by a local-government school across the whole district may not mean that nobody worked — it may mean the work was never recorded back into the national system. We therefore treat recording as part of the work itself, not as an extra burden.
7 · Targets
Measured against figures anyone can check
In the first year we measure access and information, not enrolment counts — because the data shows plainly that access is the real bottleneck.
Phase 1
Establish and pilot in Rahaeng
Set up the operations centre and data system, receive the case list from the provincial office, sign the partnership agreement, and start door-knocking with interpreters
Phase 2
Open the first flexible classroom
Admit the first cohort of 25–30 learners, publish the school’s credit-transfer regulations, and extend fieldwork to the other three sub-districts
Phase 3
Institutionalise across the municipality
Embed in the municipality’s education plan and recurring budget, extend the model to municipal schools 2–4 with our school as the data hub, and publish the lessons learned
8 · Principles
What we hold to
Trust before paperwork
A family that declines is not a family that does not care. It is a family with no reason yet to trust us. So we arrive with a service or an activity first, and collect information only when the relationship can carry it.
The child is not at fault for a life the curriculum did not anticipate
A young person supporting a family or caring for an elderly relative should not have to choose between duty and education. It is the school’s job to design a path they can actually walk.
Legal status is not a condition of learning
Every child on Thai soil has the right to education — the law is explicit. Our job is to make the process work, not to use paperwork as grounds for refusal.
Publish the real numbers, including the unflattering ones
We publish both our progress and the limits of our data. Work with vulnerable children must be open to scrutiny, and only honest figures lead to sound decisions.
“Education for all — leaving no one behind.”
Aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education and Goal 10 on reduced inequalities, within the UNESCO Learning City framework.
9 · Partners
No school can do this alone
Education
Provincial Office of Learning Encouragement · District education offices · Municipal schools 2–4 and early childhood centres
Social and health
Provincial Social Development and Human Security Office · Local hospitals and health units · Village health volunteers
Livelihoods and community
Provincial Employment Office · Tak Community College · Local employers · Community leaders across the municipality’s 27 communities
How to get involved —
If you know of a child or young person in Tak Municipality who is not in school, or if you would like to support with scholarships, materials, vocational training or volunteer interpreting, please contact Tessaban 1 Kittikhajorn School via tb1.ac.th. All information shared with us is treated confidentially.