Alibaba brings focus on tech-based education curriculum

By The Nation

 

Suchatchavee Suwansawas

 

CHINESE e-commerce giant Alibaba’s Bt11-billion promised investment in Thailand have prompted the country’s higher education institutes to step up their technology and related curriculum in preparation for a rising demand for digital skills.
 

Suchatchavee Suwansawas, rector of King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, said Jack Ma’s larger presence here via the Alibaba e-commerce, payment, logistics, and tourism projects had further boosted Thai people’s awareness of digital technology, social media, e-commerce and related fields.

 

Universities in Thailand are now set to produce more graduates in digital technology, “big data” and artificial intelligence (AI), he said.

 

Ek Pattarathanakul, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Accountancy, said Thai enterprises needed to adapt and learn new things from the Alibaba projects in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). Another option would be to focus on specific and niche market segments to avoid direct competition with the giant e-commerce and related platforms, he said.

 

Ek said Thai students needed to take new courses such as digital branding so that they understand the new landscape in the digital economy and society. Meanwhile, graduates with soft skills such as those concerning emotions, ethics and social media will also be sought after by the labour market.

 

Saowaraj Ratanakamfu of the Thailand Development Research Institute said the biggest challenge in accommodating Alibaba’s investment projects in this country lay in the availability of workers with digital and related skills. This takes on increased importance with Thailand serving as a regional hub for the Chinese giant.

 

At present, Thailand has more than 427 bachelor’s degree programmes that include digital and related subjects, with a combined capacity to produce over 26,000 graduates in these fields per year. Yet the quality of graduates is not yet sufficiently high in terms of meeting the labour market’s requirement.

 

All programmes and curriculum need to be updated frequently because technology changes rapidly, Saowaraj said, adding that the country also needed to add value to existing investments in the digital economy to stay competitive. She cited Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan as examples that leverage disruptive technologies, artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30344740

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-05-07

36 minutes ago, webfact said:

Internet of Things

Wireless technology is either over regulated or completely illegal in Thailand. 

38 minutes ago, webfact said:

technology changes rapidly

That old yarn. Programming languages like C have been around for years and are where many people learn the basics.  Hardware changes rapidly, but the basics of software do not. 

I think it's more that the ideas created around technology are rapidly changing. www.alibaba.com wasn't bringing anything new to the table that the west hasn't already done.

 

The same goes for e-commerce and www.lazada.com and online English education with www.englishgang.com etc.. They have all been done before, just not here in Thailand.

 

I'm more interested in seeing Jack Ma do something that the west hasn't done already...

Lets hope they have a tax based education philosophy because they like the other multinational high tech leviathans seem to believe they should be exempt from paying their fair share

Good ole Jack is actually the devil who is going to help turn Thailand into China having all Thai licking and kissing the motherland's arse.

Facebook 101, Advanced Twitter, Basics of Instagram. Thailaaaaan numba one!

On 5/7/2018 at 8:10 AM, car720 said:

Jack Ma is an agent at large.  China is desperate to get it's hands on technology and they will try to open every door no matter how insignificant it seems.

Isn't Alibaba the leader of the 40 thieves?