The education commission's heavily subsidised teacher training scheme is in turmoil after 87 training courses were cancelled, prompted by administrative problems.
More than 22,000 teachers who had signed up to courses failed to turn up, forcing instructors to drop them. In other cases, however, too many teachers turned up.
Some 22,349 state teachers nationwide failed to attend courses under the scheme organised by the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec). They are aimed at helping teachers develop their skills to be on par with international standards.
Under the scheme, each teacher is given a set of coupons worth 10,000 baht, which they can use to enrol in training courses provided by universities and private courses. Educational Service Area Offices nationwide adopt the courses for teachers in their area. The courses cover core subjects such as Thai, English, science and mathematics.
Boonrak Yodpetch, deputy secretary-general of Obec, said at least 87 training courses under the project were cancelled because they had either too few subscribers or too many. "Obec requires a minimum number of participants at each workshop and teachers need to reserve their places in advance, but when it came to the actual days, several courses did not have enough participants to run their workshops because not all of them had shown up," he said.
Mr Boonrak said he also found some courses had to be cancelled because there were too many participants for the number of places.
"I don't know how this kind of problem occurred. We have to improve our reservation and payment system as soon as possible," he said.
Mr Boonrak said the teachers who registered for courses that were later cancelled should be allowed to take other courses that Obec offers.
Obec will also compensate the 175-odd teachers who travelled to training centres only to be turned away.
Chomchanok Songmitr, a teacher at Rajavinit School, said she thought the cause of the problem was that no down payment was required to secure a place on the course -- teachers were merely required to show up and pay with their coupons.
"Teachers are confused about what they should do now that their courses have been cancelled. I recently attended one Thai language course. There were 70 people who had made reservations, but only 50 showed up. Luckily, my course provider decided not to cancel the workshop," she said.