Bangkok University: help for farmers, bags of rice in exhange for fees

With the price of rice at an historic minimum, farm families cannot afford the costs of education for their children. The Rangsit University will accept rice as payment for the second half, assessing it at a higher than market price.

 

Bangkok (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Rice instead of cash as payment of tuition fees.  This is the decision taken by  Bangkok’s private universities to help farm families who cannot support their children to study. From now on students enrolled at Rangsit University, located in the suburbs north of the capital, will be able to pay all or part of the next six months with rice.

Witsanu Sukmoonsiri, 22, is a student of social innovations and one of 19 who have decided to join the program: "My parents - he said - would have gone to loan sharks if it were not for this opportunity."

The lives of about 16 million Thai depend on the production and sale of rice. However, the price of product, is at its lowest for a decade now because of over-production and saturation export. That is why the leaders of Rangsit have decided to accept the food at a higher price than the market value.

The current value, if the farmers manage to sell the rice, does not even cover production costs.

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