By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER SRETTHA Thavisin confirmed today (July 22) the authorities are promptly assisting all impoverished teachers at public schools nationwide in settling their debt.
The prime minister posted on his X page to say a large number of indebted teachers at public schools are known to rank among the poor who live in prolonged woes and that the Ministry of Education and Cooperatives Promotion Department are scrambling to provide assistance in settling their long-standing debt. That apparently refers in part to debt bearing a disproportionately high interest rate which those teachers may owe to loan sharks.
Many of those indebted teachers are known to hardly make ends meet on a monthly basis with less than 30% of their total income left in their pocket after the most part of it may have been spent to repay their debt, according to the prime minister.
The prime minister said “debt settlement stations” are being set up in all parts of the country to help out the indebted teachers.
Srettha said the teachers’ competence in teaching their students could probably be improved after their debt burdens have been gradually alleviated.
Since last year, the Pheu Thai-led government has launched an anti-loan-sharks campaign nationwide to help the indebted people in all districts throughout the country settle their debt owed in informal, illegal manners.
The authorities have acted as mediators in compromise-based negotiations between the indebted people and loan sharks to the extent that the principal of the debt be repaid in regular instalment and the interest rates be sizably cut so that a sum of money may be left for the indebted people to barely make ends meet on a monthly basis.
An estimated 153,400 people have so far filed formal claims of owing debt to loan sharks. Of that total debt, over 143,800 have had the volume of their debt reduced to a combined 1.16 billion baht.
CAPTION:
Representative images of indebted teachers. Top photo: Thai Rath, Front Page photo: Amarin TV
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