The Secretary-General of the Thai Office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) is confident that Thailand 's special needs education programme will be among the top rankings in the ASEAN region.

Kamol Rodklai also expressed his willingness for the programme to become a pilot project that can be used as a guideline in other regional countries.

Chairing the opening ceremony of " Thailand 's special needs education, moving towards ASEAN", he stated that OBEC has an important obligation in providing basic education for children and youths nationwide, particularly special needs education for disabled children to grow up and reach full potential in the future.

The Office has prepared strategies such as improving special needs education teachers, creating community networks, and encouraging business sectors to become part of the educational management process.

However, Kamol admitted that some problems are still apparent in schools where disabled children are attending together with normal ones. They include the lack of caring and attention by teachers for the disabled and their special needs education.

OBEC, therefore, will aim to create substitute teachers to take extra care of the disabled children in these schools or apply the use of new media in the teaching methods.

The Secretary-General said he hopes to lay a strong and firm foundation for special needs education in Thailand because each child has different needs and requirements. Until then, OBEC will lift Thailand 's special needs education to the ASEAN level to serve as a tool in providing guidelines and instructions for other ASEAN countries to apply.-VNA