BANGKOK — Effective this year, education officials will no longer disclose the names and schools of the top 10 students ranked in university entrance examinations, an exam regulator said Tuesday.
Ending a long tradition of gawking at “those smart kids”, the secretary of the Council of University Presidents, Peerapong Triyacharoen, said the new policy will also refrain from naming which universities and faculties the top 10 winners applied for.
Peerapong said the policy of anonymity is meant to discourage the notion that some universities are better than others.
“We don’t want [exams] to glorify individuals,” said Peerapong, whose agency organizes the annual entrance examinations. “And each university also has its own standards of admission. They cannot be compared with each other.”
Parents and students tended to interpret each year’s roster of top 10 entrance exam scorers as an indication of which schools have the brightest and most successful candidates. Naturally, student achievements were a boon for school administrators.
In 2018, the top scorer was a student from Triam Udom Suksa Pattanakarn School in Bangkok. Schools from Nakhon Pathom, Lopburi, Sakon Nakhon and other provinces also made the list.
