School Budget and Students’ Performance: Empirical Findings from Thailand

Abstract

This study aims to find the effects of school budget on students’ performance in Thailand at the primary, secondary, and high-school levels. The paper uses data from three sources, namely the National Institute of Educational Testing Service (NIETS), the Office of The Basic Education Commission (OBEC), and the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA). Using descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses on 32,572 schools, the paper finds that the student-per-teacher ratio and the school budget have statistically significant effects on students’ performance in all three subjects studied (math, Thai, and science). The school budget has higher effects on students’ performance at higher levels, while the student-per-teacher ratio seems to have the highest effect on students’ performance at the Primary level. Moreover, the findings suggest that school resources and teacher quality do not have statistically significant effects on students’ performance.