Protection of the Right to Education of Persons With Disabilities at the Local Government Organizations Level

Abstract

            The research aims to. 1) to study the background and importance of education management problems for people with disabilities at the local government level; 2) to study concepts, theories, and policies on education for people with disabilities at the local government level; 3) to study the law on rights protection. 4) to study and analyze the protection of education rights for persons with disabilities at the local government level, and 5) to recommend a law to protect the right to education for persons with disabilities at the organizational level. local government and use the results from the research to be formulated as a central law for the protection of education rights for persons with disabilities of local governments. This study adopted the qualitative research method and focused on the synthesis of documents from legal provisions, academic texts, theses, legal journal articles, seminar handouts, statistics and information from domestic and international websites regarding the laws on the protection of the right to education of persons with disabilities at the local government organizations level to analyze problems, conclusions and recommendations concerning the acquisition of principles and reasons for enacting a model law of protection of the right to education of persons with disabilities by local government organizations level.
             The study found that according to the constitution and laws concerning education of person with disabilities in Thailand, the law recognized their rights to education as the “rights” of citizens including the rights to receive education and freedom of access to public education under Section 54 Paragraph One of Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2560 (2017) and the National Education Act, B.E. 2542 (1999) which recognized the abovementioned rights in Section 10 and Section 17 or the rights to quality and acceptable education for persons with disabilities defined in the National Scheme of Education No. 3, B.E. 2560-2564 (2017-2021) and the Educational Development Plan of the Ministry of Education No. 12, B.E. 2560-2564 (2017-2021). These were social and public education management aspects to comply with Section 54 Paragraph One and Section 258 in the educational reform of the constitution. On the rights to education for persons with disabilities subject to the laws concerning the educational administration and management for persons with disabilities by local government organizations, it was found that according to the specific law or each law establishing local government organization forms failed to specify that local government organizations had a direct duty to provide education, except the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration which have been determined to provide education. This is contrary to the Determining Plan and Process of Decentralization to Local Government Organization Act, B.E. 2542 (1999) which stipulated that all 5 forms of local government organizations shall be responsible for providing education. On the education management, the law failed to specify which local government organizations responsible for certain education management, this caused problems of education management conflicts.
              Recommendations for research to ensure principles and reasons for enacting a model law to protect the rights to education persons with disabilities at the local governments organizations level: 1) To have central law as “Educational Administration and Management by Local Administrative Organization Ordinance B.E. ….” which amends and combines the principles and reasons of the law on the educational administration and management by local government organizations, laws concerning the educational administration and management for persons with disabilities and existing laws concerning to the educational organization as a single law. This approach is more appropriate than having numerous laws specifying the operations, roles, and responsibilities for local government organizations, resulting in authority conflicts. 2) On the authorities to supervise local government organizations, the law determines the exercise of power through the cabinet, the Minister of Interior, provincial governor, and district chief, which is an exercise of power on a basis of disunity and inconsistent with the purpose of the constitution according to the principle of decentralization to protect the interests of local people, especially education. Accordingly, there should be a sole agency to exercise the powers, that is, the Department of Local Administration. 3) On the local government organizations’ duties and responsibilities concerning education for persons with disabilities, the law should endorse the “Education Management” as the local government organizations’ duties and specify which local government organizations responsible for certain education management such as Japan France.