Move to set up educational institutes that can develop manpower for EEC

By Chularat Saengpassa 
The Nation

 

 

THAILAND’S higher-education sector is shifting gears towards the future – setting sights on new engines of growth as well as the much-vaunted Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).
 

“We will have to prepare courses that respond to the development of target industries in the EEC,” Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec) secretary-general Suphat Champatong said of the new focus. 

 

The government has identified 10 industries as key drivers for the country’s growth. They are: Next – Generation Automotive; Smart Electronics; Affluent, Medical and Wellness Tourism; Agriculture and Biotechnology; Food for the Future; Robotics; Aviation and Logistics; Biolfuels and Biochemicals; Digital Industry; and Medical Hub. 

 

 

Suphat emphasised that the educational sector must earnestly move ahead in line with the country’s development goals and policies. 

 

He said CMKL University is a clear example of how higher-education institutes can take the initiative in supporting Thailand’s move forward. 

 

Established by Carnegie Mellon University and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, CMKL University is now accepting applications to train people for master’s and doctorates in engineering. 

 

“Graduates will be quality human resources for target industries,” Suphat said. 

 

He believes CMKL will be able to produce 200 master’s graduates, 80 doctoral graduates and 50 “world-class innovators” over the next decade. 

 

King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology is a leading educational institute in Thailand, while Carnegie Mellon University is a prominent school in the United States. 

 

Suphat said Ohec has also been negotiating for cooperation with many other top foreign universities with an eye to setting up more new, high-quality universities in Thailand and producing a capable workforce to match the new engines of growth. 

 

“For example, we are now in talk with Switzerland’s Les Roches Global Education for a hospitality and leisure management programme, Japan’s Tokyo University for an aerospace engineering programme, and Britain’s University of Portsmouth for aviation and robotics programmes,” Suphat said. 

 

He added that such moves would also help make Thailand Southeast Asia’s education hub. 

 

Thammasat University rector Associate Professor Gasinee Witoonchart, meanwhile, recently sought a meeting with Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana about a plan to establish the first higher-educational facility in the EEC. 

 

“We plan to develop our Pattaya campus in Chon Buri and we establish it as a medical hub too,” Gasinee said. 

 

She said the campus would operate specialised medical facilities and even include a research centre for medical innovations. 

 

“We will pursue our goals in collaboration with the private sector,” she said. 

 

Gasinee said Uttama had expressed support for the plan because it could contribute to EEC development.

 

The chosen location is about 40 kilometres from U-tapao Airport, 121km from Suvarnabhumi and 27km from Laem Chabang Port. 

 

 

Gasinee said Thammasat’s Pattaya campus would also host a Thammasat Innovation Hub. Spanning 24,000 square metres, it would feature 10 buildings, including a co-working space, “smart space for active learning” and business co-working space. 

 

Thammasat has already inked agreements for cooperation with several organisations in pursuit of the plan to develop the campus in a significant and high-impact way. Among its partners are the Federation of Thai Industries, MAIC Motor-CP, Banpu and Hong Kong Cyber Port. 

Gasinee said the cooperation would be fruitful. 

 

“For example, we will collaborate with Banpu in developing metro-train prototypes,” she said, “Our collaboration with MAIC Motor-CP will meanwhile focus on automobile technology development.” 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30357856

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-11-05

Maybe first they need to understand the idea about keeping your hair out of the work-piece.

 

The girl on the left might as well be hat-less !!

2 hours ago, webfact said:

He added that such moves would also help make Thailand Southeast Asia’s education hub.

You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all the.....hang on....maybe you can!

3 hours ago, webfact said:

200 master’s graduates, 80 doctoral graduates and 50 “world-class innovators” over the next decade. 

So per YEAR = 20 Masters; 8 Doctoral Grads; 5 World-Class Innovators.  That should solve all Thailand's skill shortages.

I had a nice dream too, but it wasn’t as elaborate as this one. What benefits would these schools get from setting up in Thailand?  The students don’t have the skills to even begin at masters levels!  The students that graduate, in this dream, will leave for a better country, and a better place.  The problems start at grade 1.  Until there is a paradigm shift in the system, Thailand will fall further behind.  The best bet is to do what China does, and pay to sent students to the world’s best universities with an obligation to work and teach in their home countries, if they can find qualified enough students 

4 hours ago, davehowden said:

Maybe first they need to understand the idea about keeping your hair out of the work-piece.

 

The girl on the left might as well be hat-less !!

Yes, but it is worn with such style!

and yet another cash pie to be sliced up amongst the corrupt and the shamless...

5 hours ago, webfact said:

“Graduates will be quality human resources for target industries,” Suphat said. 

Could this be a very cautious attempt to point out that the current "education system" may have some weaknesses and pass the need?

4 hours ago, davehowden said:

Maybe first they need to understand the idea about keeping your hair out of the work-piece.

 

The girl on the left might as well be hat-less !!

But she's busy on the smartphone letting her boyfriend see how pretty she is.

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Move to set up educational institutes that can develop manpower for EEC

Dreams built on dreams! 

The PM has a dream about creating an Eastern Economic Corridor and decides to make his dream come true. But there's a few problems; there is not the money or the technical know-how or a skilled workforce to turn the dream into reality.

So then it is left for someone else to have a dream about how to acquire the technical knowledge needed to satisfy the PM's dream. In this case Secretary-General Suphat of the Higher Education Commission has that dream.

Then someone else will be required to have a dream about where the tens of thousands of skilled human resources are going to come from........and so it goes.

This country floats on clouds of dreams.

7 hours ago, webfact said:

“We plan to develop our Pattaya campus in Chon Buri and we establish it as a medical hub too,” Gasinee said. 

 

Totally needed, a medical hub to implant big boobs and get some shots for the old gents to be stiff @ Pattaya..

A well thought plan indeed...

I was just reading an article from the President of my alma mater on the adaptation of education of the future.  I wanted to share it because it was so refreshing after being bambarded with nonsense-

 

Access to education is an American value that pre-dates the nation itself.

 It’s a principle we trace back to the Puritans, who established the Boston Latin School in 1635. Twelve years later, it prompted a colonial decree requiring every Massachusetts town of 100 families or more to hire a schoolmaster to teach its children to read and write. And it culminated in Horace Mann’s 19th century common school movement that made a free, publicly financed primary education compulsory for all.

A century later, the G.I. Bill extended the project to higher education, putting a generation of Americans on the glide path to prosperity after World War II. Then, in 1965, the first Higher Education Act ushered in the modern student financial aid system, making college broadly accessible through Pell Grants and federally-guaranteed student loans.

Today, standing on the precipice of an age of artificial intelligence, we confront a new set of challenges to the very nature of work and how we prepare learners for fulfilling lives. It’s clear that a K-12 education—even supplemented with a four-year degree—will not ensure lifelong success. 

Nevertheless, many in higher education remain focused on access to the outdated undergraduate system in place today—while ignoring an urgent need for access to learning across our lifetimes.

To be sure, supporting first-generation and underrepresented undergraduates remains a vital priority.

But the simple fact is that machines will continue to get smarter. To keep pace, we humans must continue to do the same. 

This should lead us to think about equality of opportunity in a completely new way. No longer can it be a one-time, one-way ticket that begins with preschool and ends, for not nearly as many, with a college degree.

Now is our moment to redesign a higher education system still largely built around four-year degrees and a smattering of graduate programs. In its stead, we can create one that provides everyone with pathways throughout their working lives to a better career and a more fulfilled life.

In the face of a rapidly changing economy, a new focus on lifelong learning will reinvigorate the idea of educational opportunity at the heart of the American Dream.

Nonetheless, kudos extended for the attempts of going through the motions and all this grand talk....

That's what's really important. 

 

All rhetorical theory, less practiced implementation. 

With a whole lot of Thainess thrown in. 

 

 

Educational hub, indeed.

EEC is the new Hub,eh?

 

EDIT: Thammasat Pattaya campus... good news for punters, fresh meat.

Edited November 5, 20187 yr by DrTuner
Patts FTW