Under a recent agreement between the government and the UNHCR, both sides have promised to adopt a "new vision" and implement measures to enable the mostly Karen refugees, who had been kept idle, to further their education beyond basic schooling, receive training and seek employment in and outside the camps.

The new thinking is aimed at reducing the stress of prolonged confinement in border camps. It will also offer camp residents a chance to productively use the time in a way that promotes self-reliance and a sense of self-worth, as well as preparing them for the future and for making a positive contribution to Thailand's economy.

The Education Ministry and providers of services to refugees are already outlining a plan to enhance the current education services inside the camps by adding Thai- and English-language training along with guidelines on how to measure camp residents' educational attainment. The goal is to enable them to further their studies at vocational schools and universities in courses to be provided via online distance programmes or at educational institutions outside the camps.

By conservative estimates, Thailand hosts hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers. Most of them entered the country illegally from Burma, Laos and Cambodia. Due to the general improvement in living conditions as well as falling birth rates, thanks to economic and social development, many Thais now shun "hard and dirty" jobs, such as construction work, fishing and domestic help. Immigrant workers are now filling these jobs.

As the government intensifies its efforts to regulate immigrant workers by encouraging them to register to work in this country legally while at the same time cracking down on illegals, asylum-seekers who want to find legal employment while being sheltered in Thailand should be able to do so. The authorities will in the near future issue identification cards to enable students or employable camp residents to travel outside refugee camps to school or work. This well-intentioned step must be supported by clear-cut guidelines on how to protect these people from harassment by corrupt government officials or abuse by their prospective Thai employers.

Many asylum-seekers who fled the fighting between Burmese government troops and ethnic rebels, as well as their children, have been held in camps for the past two decades with minimal or no contact with the outside world. These people are waiting for the situation in Burma to improve so that they can safely return. A lucky few will apply for and receive the right to resettle in a third country. Either eventuality could end many more years of waiting.

For both administrative and practical reasons, the majority of these Burmese asylum-seekers are not recognised by the UNHCR as refugees, which would otherwise make them eligible for screening and possible resettlement in a third country. Many Western countries that have traditionally accepted refugees for resettlement in the past are restricting or closing the door completely on new immigration because of political and economic reasons at home.

Treating refugees humanely is in line with Thailand's efforts to be a responsible member of the international community. What's more, the mutual benefits of educating displaced Burmese people, providing them with useful skills and legally employing them with decent protection against abuse are valid not just in the short term.

If and when democracy is restored in Burma and peace is made between Rangoon and the country's ethnic rebels, this stock of better-educated, highly trained workers will be able to return home and help rebuild their country. Taking care of refugees will also serve Thailand's long-term national interests, because it will lay the groundwork for future good relations with a democratic Burma.