​​​​​​​Govt hopes foreign universities in Thailand to raise quality of Thai education

[webfact]

Govt hopes foreign universities in Thailand to raise quality of Thai education

 

FILE photo

 

BANGKOK, 25th June 2018 (NNT) – The Deputy Minister of Education stated that the government hopes the two foreign universities in Thailand will help upgrade the country's education standard. 

Deputy Education Minister Prof Dr Udom Khachinthorn disclosed that the cabinet granted Amata University the right to offer a Master's of Science (MS) in Engineering (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) from National Taiwan University (NTU) in Thailand. The degree will focus largely on future automation and autonomous vehicles. 

With the aim to build the country's strength and to nurture Thailand as the leading hub of innovation in the Southeast Asia region, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Lad Krabang (KMITL) has also joined hands with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to establish CMKL University. 

It is a long-term collaboration to significantly expand research and education in the areas of information, computing and autonomous technologies. The Carnegie Mellon-KMITL program will focus on collaborative education, research and faculty development programs, said the KMITL President Prof Dr Suchatchawee Suwansawas. 

The Deputy Minister of Education has confirmed the two universities were established to enhance the potential of the Eastern Economic Corridor and they will not affect the number of students in Thai universities but will upgrade quality of Thai education.

 

-- nnt 2018-06-25

[Get Real]

But then the ability to listen, understand and take instructions from people originating from another country must be visible. Never heard that was something that even existed.

[RotMahKid]

So for that purpose foreigners are good enough? I would say: " Do it yourself first! "

[AntDee]

32 minutes ago, Get Real said:

But then the ability to listen, understand and take instructions from people originating from another country must be visible. Never heard that was something that even existed.

Completely agree. How will they put aside the lifelong indoctrination that foreigners have little to offer? How will they not find themselves constantly thinking at every opportunity "see, farang/Taiwanese are not better than us"? 

 

Nonetheless, good luck. 

[mok199]

when all else fails ,thais always have ''hope''.''blame''.and of course ''good luck to you''...most of know how to educate or children,sadly its not here...

[Eligius]

They don't realise how stupid they sound in everything they come out with: 'Thailand as the leading hub [of course - what else!] of innovation in the Southeast Asia region' - but that 'innovation' (i.e. being new and original) is going to be COPIED from foreign sources!

 

What idiots!

[Cadbury]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Cabinet granted Amata University the right to offer a Master's of Science (MS) in Engineering (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) from National Taiwan University (NTU) in Thailand. The degree will focus largely on future automation and autonomous vehicles. 

The scope of this approval is very limited to a specialist subject (robots) designed to help the PM's hobby horse, the Eastern Economic Corridor. So nothing to get too excited about; Thai universities remain superior to foreign universities in every other respect.

The PM seems to have an unhealthy obsession with his EEC dream, perhaps to the detriment of other important community needs such as health and basic education and fixing a corrupt and dishonest civil service. But they are not so important and can wait. Perhaps he has them included in his 20 year plan.

[greenchair]

20 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

The scope of this approval is very limited to a specialist subject (robots) designed to help the PM's hobby horse, the Eastern Economic Corridor. So nothing to get too excited about; Thai universities remain superior to foreign universities in every other respect.

The PM seems to have an unhealthy obsession with his EEC dream, perhaps to the detriment of other important community needs such as health and basic education and fixing a corrupt and dishonest civil service. But they are not so important and can wait. Perhaps he has them included in his 20 year plan.

I agree with you. 

The most glaring, urgent, enormous problem in Thailand is the multi trillion baht corruption in the civil service. With the ministry of education and army at the top. These people dont need to be transferred and sacked. They need to be in prison. 

[Get Real]

1 hour ago, AntDee said:

Completely agree. How will they put aside the lifelong indoctrination that foreigners have little to offer? How will they not find themselves constantly thinking at every opportunity "see, farang/Taiwanese are not better than us"? 

 

Nonetheless, good luck. 

All that is totally true. There is also a very complicated difference of structure regarding the way of learning. If I like a westerner would try to teach a Thai something, the same way as I think. That will just not work. They are doing most things different due to that other parts of the brain is overtaking the way of thinking. In my opinion this is not going to be possible due to the difference in the ways of doing things, learning things and understanding things.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Get Real

[Aj Mick]

Having a couple of foreign universities come to Thailand would open options for those who can afford them, but would it do anything to improve the quality of Thai education in general? Zilch I suggest. To do that they need to look at primary and secondary schooling to start, which despite a few tweaks has been fundamentally unchanged in many years. By the time students reach university curiosity, creativity and critical thinking has disappeared from the majority. Where I work we do encourage it, but it can be a battle as "saying the right thing", copying examples and others as well as plagiarism have already become the norm for many, and any original thinking is too fearsome to fathom.

 

Add to that (over the 15 years I have been in my department for example) seats available have increased from 40 students selected for their ability to hack the pace and graduate, to 120 seats which we are unable to fill despite relatively dumbed down standards, selecting from students who have come through a system where they are not allowed to fail. Most are ill-prepared for university study.

 

One of the first things they get told is that they can fail, and my first year basic writing courses are as much about teaching students how to study, and culling the less than diligent or capable, as they are about covering the stated objectives of the course.

 

My student numbers and contact hours have gone up by 80% and 40% respectively since late 2003 (base pay has increased by 40%, but net pay has gone up by about 16% as previously untaxed allowances are now taxed..... the old give two and take one back!). The number of graduates we produce has not changed much, however.

 

Previously we had a graduation rate of 36 - 40 students after 4 years (90 to 100 percent of those who started). Nowadays it averages not much more than 40 out of about 100 students who start the English major program, with considerable variation, ranging from a low of about 20 to a high of about 60 graduating after 4 years. Typically ten or a dozen stay on to repeat papers they had failed, thus graduating a year or two later.

 

Have the vastly increased number of international schools over the past 3 or 4 decades had any affect on the Thai education system?

 

Far more fundamental changes to the education system are required than expecting improvement to trickle down from having a couple of foreign universities set up campuses within Thailand.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2018 by Aj Mick

[mikebell]

Is this the thin end of the wedge?  Thais recognising that foreigners can be a force for good?  Perhaps the Government could look at how farangs keep the daily road kill down; run efficient bribe-free police forces; encourage a full day's labour; have a Civil service that serves the people not themselves?

[klauskunkel]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Govt hopes foreign universities in Thailand to raise quality of Thai education

Govt admits they can't do it themselves

[BEVUP]

No doubt just like the rest of them

 

Open up another International school & only have a percentage of Foreigners & the rest Thai

 

I have a son in a private Primary school where the usual crap came out after a month " he needs more English study "

 

So instead of having their fully qualified foreign English teachers run it, they use the Thai's 

[hansnl]

1 hour ago, mikebell said:

Is this the thin end of the wedge?  Thais recognising that foreigners can be a force for good?  Perhaps the Government could look at how farangs keep the daily road kill down; run efficient bribe-free police forces; encourage a full day's labour; have a Civil service that serves the people not themselves?

Sometimes I have doubts about the latter...

 

[ChrisY1]

Government hopes!.......that's how they treat most controversial issues and usually never have any idea of constructive solutions.

[Chris Lawrence]

Need to change mind set of the educators.

[TEFLKrabi]

4 hours ago, Get Real said:

But then the ability to listen, understand and take instructions from people originating from another country must be visible. Never heard that was something that even existed.

There are a lot of good students who want to listen and learn and I hope they’ll get the chance of better education thru policies like this.  Not all Thai students are lazy. 

[GinBoy2]

Hmmm, a few foreign university's opening up shop are unlikely to do anything to alleviate the horrendous issues facing education in this country.

I think it was @Aj_Mick who mentioned primary and secondary education as the real issue, and I tend to agree.

My step son is a great case in point. I'd been in his life since he was 4, hence speaks fluent English. We had put him through private schools (not in BKK, so not talking international schools), and looking back I think I wasted my money, since the education was as appalling as the public school system, the best I can say was maybe I bought him a better class of friends.

I would read his school books and despair. I'm no educator but I tried to make up the gaps as best I could, since I always planned that he go to college in the US. It would become comical at times reading the corrections and comments to his English homework, since as the kid was totally fluent and literate, the corrections were unintelligible and comical for the most past.

So fast forward to him going to the US for college. Even though I tried as hard as I could to prepare him, his freshman year in Chicago was brutal. Poor kid struggled mightily. Luckily my eldest daughter was also in Chicago and helped tutor him to get him through, but man it was tough.

So none of the usual Thai 'window dressing' with a token university or two is going to make a dent in correcting the education system here, but it makes for a good 'another day, another hub' story.

[Get Real]

1 hour ago, TEFLKrabi said:

There are a lot of good students who want to listen and learn and I hope they’ll get the chance of better education thru policies like this.  Not all Thai students are lazy. 

My comment had nothing to do with lazyness. 

[upu2]

5 hours ago, Eligius said:

They don't realise how stupid they sound in everything they come out with: 'Thailand as the leading hub [of course - what else!] of innovation in the Southeast Asia region' - but that 'innovation' (i.e. being new and original) is going to be COPIED from foreign sources!

 

What idiots!

It is not innovation if it is copied

[Aj Mick]

1 hour ago, TEFLKrabi said:

There are a lot of good students who want to listen and learn and I hope they’ll get the chance of better education thru policies like this.  Not all Thai students are lazy. 

Too many hours of "listening to teacher" and "reading the book" along with rote learning and copying, with the expectation of learning something among students within the Thai system. More thinking critically and challenging doing required to make learning effective.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Aj Mick

[IAMHERE]

Once again the Thai prove they don't 'get' 'timing'; this should have been published on April 1st. 

[exemplary21]

6 hours ago, Aj Mick said:

 

Previously we had a graduation rate of 36 - 40 students after 4 years (90 to 100 percent of those who started). Nowadays it averages not much more than 40 out of about 100 students who start the English major program, with considerable variation, ranging from a low of about 20 to a high of about 60 graduating after 4 years. Typically ten or a dozen stay on to repeat papers they had failed, thus graduating a year or two later.

 

 

 

Bad teaching...?

[Aj Mick]

59 minutes ago, exemplary21 said:

 

Bad teaching...?

I would suggest you read my whole post rather than make an assumption based on a single paragraph. Although the powers that be and outsiders might be inclined to blame teachers. 

 

Teachers now have a higher work load (and longer hours), dealing with more students in bigger class sizes, many of whom are ill prepared for university study coming from schools where failure is not allowed. Teaching methods and courses have been updated over time, and adapted to give the weaker students we are now required to accept the opportunity to come up to speed, but in the end we have sought to maintain standards. Our English major graduates are generally well accepted by employers and few have a problem starting a career. That cannot be said for all majors

 

Some of the same teachers as 15 years ago, with most new staff (several of whom are graduates of the major, some are ex-students of mine) being at least as competent as those who have moved on. While school teachers are constrained by the course guidelines and materials they use to teach, at tertiary level where I am at, we have more flexibility. We have some good classrooms, but some of our newer ones are in a building that was intended as offices, and have an environment with a lot of extraneous noise, which is not conducive to learning...... however there are ways of coping and working around that.

[peterpaintpot]

It says a lot about the Government when they talk about the two Foreign Universities and yet I Know of a third in Muak Lek Saraburi, how many more do they not know about?