BANGKOK: The Education Ministry, reacting to real or imagined public outcry over participation in beauty contests by many young high-school students, announced on Thursday that it would invoke a rarely-enforced, four-decade-old regulation prohibiting them from entering such competitions.
The regulation, issued in 1961 by then Education Minister Pin Malakul, prohibits female students, as well as teachers, from taking part in beauty contests, some of which require contestants to parade in revealing swimsuits before an audience and panel of judges.