COLLABORATION OF PUBLIC SERVICES OF PHAYAO ELDERLY SCHO OL, NORTHERN THAILAND

Abstract

This research project studies collaboration of public services of Phayao Elderly People in the northern part of Thailand. The research questions are: ‘Which factors that make the collaboration possible?’, ‘What are the processes of collaboration?’ and ‘What are the final results of the collaborations?’ This research aims to investigating the conditions leading into the collaboration of the school, examining the collaboration process and studying the results arising from the collaboration. This is a qualitative research using the Phayao Elderly School as a case study. This school is the most successful elderly school in Thailand. Structured interviews and observations are used to understand the incidents as a framework for the interviews. Content analysis is also used to analyze recorded transcripts of the interviews. The findings of this research are: 1) The factors which led to the formation of the elderly school are the deteriorations of the elderly people’s health, the increasing population of the elderly people, and the utilization of the elderly people’s free time after retirement to maintain and improve their lifestyles. 2) A network of collaboration to ensure the implementation of the elderly school and 3) The school can encourage the integrity and self-esteem of the elderly people. The number of students is increasing every year. However, the funding for governmental collaboration has not increased.