The Educational Rights of Stateless Children: Case Study of Thailand and Lao PDR

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study whether stateless children living in Thailand
and Laos have the educational rights and how they face educational problems and barriers.
The thesis aims to study the educational rights of stateless children in Thailand and Laos that
are accepted by the government to have residence and reside in such countries by considering
related international laws, laws of Thailand, and laws of Laos.
According to the study of guaranteed and protected rights in reference to international
laws, custom, and treaty signed by Thailand and Laos, these international laws which guarantee
and protect the educational rights identify that the educational rights are the human rights. As
a result, humans, regardless of, ethnic, nationality, and even “stateless children” have the
same educational rights. However, stateless children still encounter the problem of educational
rights access. For example, the first topic is leaving out of the controlled area of stateless
children and problems relating stateless persons, and minorities which always involve with
the national security. Therefore, these persons have to be limited any rights by the governmental
authorities, even the restriction of controlled areas. They are restricted to travel out of the
controlled areas, leading to no freedom of transportation. This limitation for stateless children
is considered to be the limitation of educational rights. Such limitation is not appropriate tocurrent lifestyles because stateless children need to travel out of the areas to their educational
institutes. Nowadays, the education is borderless. Students are able to access to any educational
institutes even those in foreign countries. Moreover, there is collaboration between educational
institutes for exchanging students and interacting with youths and students. If the government
limits the area of stateless children, they will not be eligible to the educational rights equally
when compared to persons with nationality.
The second topic that the researcher realized the importance is provision of scholarship.
Most stateless children are poor and some can afford the tuition fees only for the basic
educational level, such as, primary education and secondary education. Therefore, the higher
education level, like university education or abroad study, is difficult for them due to its
tuition fees of each semester and other expenses, such as, personal expenses, educational
equipment expenses, accommodation and meal fee. Most scholarships provided by governmental
agencies determine the qualification of applicants that they must be the residents with nationality
of its state only.
As a result, to allow stateless children to access the educational rights fairly and equally,
all concerned sections should cooperate to resolve this issue. Regarding to the barriers of the
educational rights access for stateless children, concerned sections should consider and amend
such limitation. For the law enforcement, understanding and knowledge should be described
and communicated to governmental officers. For stateless children, both public sector and
private sector should be aware of the importance of education, and communicate knowledge
on educational rights so that stateless children are able to claim and protect their rights, as
well as, apply gained knowledge to further develop themselves and the society.