Over 200,000 uni seats empty despite TCAS being successful

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Over 200,000 uni seats empty despite TCAS being successful

By The Nation

 

 

THOUGH all five rounds of the 2019 Thai University Central Admission System (TCAS) have been “highly successful”, more than 200,000 seats are still vacant, reflecting a serious need for Thai universities to improve, Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT) chairman Suchatvee Suwansawat said on Sunday. 

The council will, in the middle of the next month, officially present the overall picture of TCAS 2019, which began in December to fill 445,364 seats in 91,340 programmes, he said. Since this is the first time that the CUPT has applied “Big Data” analysis for university admissions, the public will get to learn about students’ behaviour, such as why they prefer certain faculties and why they are willing to give up university seats, he said. 

 

Initial information shows that the first round (based on students’ portfolio) had the largest number of applicants; the second round (based on a quota system) saw the largest number of students confirming seats, while the fifth round saw the fewest number of students giving up their seats, Suchatvee said. 

 

In August, the CUPT will hold a brainstorming session with CUPT academics, universities and related agencies to see how the TCAS system can be improved and how issues such as students blocking others’ chance by applying to several institutes in the first and second rounds can be solved, Suchatvee said. 

 

The CUPT chairman also said the new minister of higher education, science, research and innovation would be invited for a special discussion with the CUPT to plan guidelines and measures to ensure university research projects cater to the country’s needs and respond to national strategy. 

 

He said the council had called on universities to be more motivated in conducting research and be ready to adhere to new budget rules. 

 

He said the CUPT had told the universities about Thailand’s needs in various aspects, especially the agriculture and industry sectors, and how cross-field, cross-university research proposals should be prepared for budget allocation. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30371661

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-06-25

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[ezzra]

Probably owing to the facts that a Thai diplomas and a degrees not worth much in the local employment market that is flooded with uni leavers and even less overseas, the curriculum indeed need to updated and upgraded in line with what the market need rather than what's looks good and impressive in a frame on a wall... 

[ChipButty]

Even Thai's have realized them diplomas are not worth the paper they are printed on

[graemeaylward]

Does this mean that the Universities are only half full? If so, that has cost and staffing implications. If fees go up because of fewer paying students, then even fewer students will apply and a downward spiral will ensue!


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[dinsdale]

Another example of just 'how well' the economy is going. 

[leeneeds]

Seeing first hand mining engineers who have the talent to become good engineer"s, but 

have no place of employment after finishing degrees,

and they keep pumping them out from uni, 

The system needs an overhaul to have opportunities once qualified to then learn, be employed in their chosen field, 

The restrictive attitude of mineral ministers, lack of understanding of mining by the populace, good environmental policies where mining can happen with the minerals Thailand possess, having the will to change it seems will take many generations, and waste all the brain power that could so benefit the community as a nation.

 

Only a small snippet of what is a massive problem.

 

 

[otherstuff1957]

^^^VinnieK has it right.  Thais, like Chinese, Japanese and Europeans, are having fewer children.  Fewer children = fewer students.

 

[ChrisY1]

"Highly successful"....of course the drive has been successful....?

Abject failure if you ask me.

Hopefully some of the dodgy universities may fall by the wayside...instead of running a diploma mills!

[Yinn]

1 hour ago, dinsdale said:

Another example of just 'how well' the economy is going. 

I agree.

To many job, so easy to get the job. No need go to uni. No time for uni.

All the boss on West Coast need more workers now. Have to bring more from Burma to do it.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Yinn

[mfd101]

I wonder what the "445000 seats" actually means. Is that the number of full-time students the Thai universities are funded for? Or is it just the first-year entry numbers?

 

If the former, it would be woefully small for a country of c70 million. [Australia, with 1/3 the population, has that many FOREIGN students in its university system and some 1,500,000 full-time equivalents. Whether that's good or not is a different matter ... ]

[warrima]

Like anywhere a university degree only serves to get your foot in the door. A few years experience in your chosen profession soon overrules any qualifications on a resume.  If your willing to maybe start a rung lower on the ladder you will end up at the same position as your degree holding colleagues. Only difference is you get paid while they accumulate debt for 3 or 4 years. 

 

If i had to do it over again i would skip university. Current president of the company i work at is a time served apprentice  

[holy cow cm]

I know a couple of kids who graduated with my son last year that still want to get a seat at CMU and are contemplating what the heck to do. Best luck to them. My son got accepted fast to CMU on his own merits. What a load off of everyone's minds.

[zaZa9]

445,000 'seats' ( possible enrollments ) , divided by 91,000 programs ( possible courses ? ) = 4.89 seats for each program ?

 

Sounds odd to me...

[dinsdale]

32 minutes ago, Yinn said:

I agree.

To many job, so easy to get the job. No need go to uni. No time for uni.

All the boss on West Coast need more workers now. Have to bring more from Burma to do it.

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying people don't have the money. 

[Yinn]

8 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying people don't have the money. 

Why not? Everybody searching for the worker now. More jobs than people. Especially if have the uni degree. 

Where you live?

[yokat]

21 minutes ago, zaZa9 said:

445,000 'seats' ( possible enrollments ) , divided by 91,000 programs ( possible courses ? ) = 4.89 seats for each program ?

 

Sounds odd to me...

The numbers are strange and some important number are missing.

How many student were eligible for those seats ? Is the situation the same for all faculties at all universities or are some of them  overfunded ?

 

An average lower than 5 seat per program sure is odd. I've had classes were I was almost alone but the norm tend to be more than 15 students per class (at master level) and bachelor classes had even more students per room.

[Dimple]

Wasn’t this Thailand 4.0 pipe dream ordered to be handled by the university’s of Thailand by some general a while back? Looks like someone has to put his size 44 foot down promptly!

[newatthis]

4 hours ago, warrima said:

Like anywhere a university degree only serves to get your foot in the door. A few years experience in your chosen profession soon overrules any qualifications on a resume.  If your willing to maybe start a rung lower on the ladder you will end up at the same position as your degree holding colleagues. Only difference is you get paid while they accumulate debt for 3 or 4 years. 

 

If i had to do it over again i would skip university. Current president of the company i work at is a time served apprentice  

Depends on the profession, of course.

[Assurancetourix]

5 hours ago, Yinn said:

I agree.

To many job, so easy to get the job. No need go to uni. No time for uni.

All the boss on West Coast need more workers now. Have to bring more from Burma to do it.

I

Burmese, Laotian, Cambodian and even Vietnamese who come to work in Thailand do so because no Thai would want to do these jobs that are messy, dangerous and badly paid.

It has nothing to do with a university degree.

Thai families who have some financial means send their children to study abroad;
It costs a lot more than doing them in Thailand but the bottom line is that they come back with recognized diplomas all over the world and also speak the language of the country in which they studied.
It is a shame to see Thai students with a university diploma bac +4, 5, or more not knowing how to write a simple sentence in English nor to get out the same sentence while speaking;
I don't speak about French or German, which are much more complicated languages.

[marko kok prong]

Maybe a lot of the female's have worked out easier i go bar meet rich falang.

[observer90210]

I would not point a finger to rapidly at Thai Universities, after the scandal in the USA regarding the rich and famous who bribed their kids into the campuses....who knows what other things their money could have bought on a academic point of view ?

[gk10002000]

So is this article saying they have a shortage of university students applying or actually accepting and going to university?  So the universities are then presumably going to be getting less tuition money?   Business is bad eh?  Well, maybe offer a more useful product at a fair price and people will buy it. 

[473geo]

Have a daughter approaching Uni age, the other day, out of the blue, when we were discussing her future my wife mentioned, come out of Uni, no work, nobody want......

I'm guessing a change of plan could be on the way, possibly an introduction to full time employment by family members already working in the factories, maybe the new preferred way to go

Either way the decision will be my daughters at the time, if not before, we shall see, I guess it depends if she plans for a profession, or just employment

[mfd101]

5 hours ago, 473geo said:

Have a daughter approaching Uni age, the other day, out of the blue, when we were discussing her future my wife mentioned, come out of Uni, no work, nobody want......

I'm guessing a change of plan could be on the way, possibly an introduction to full time employment by family members already working in the factories, maybe the new preferred way to go

Either way the decision will be my daughters at the time, if not before, we shall see, I guess it depends if she plans for a profession, or just employment

The problem is of course that, depending on her family background & where she lives, she may have even less clue about future possibilities than her falang equivalents in The West would have.

 

I live here in Surin amongst the clueless peasants. We have a 16-year-old niece living with us to go to high school in Prasat. She did well enough at the village school earlier to win a scholarship from The Princess, so she has at least some potential, but there aren't too many signs of awareness of or planning for the future. 'University' looms but, in a family where only 1 aunt went to 'university' (with no outward sign of change in life style or earning capacity or a house full of books ... ), there is little awareness of anything more than 20 kilometers away or not on Youtube.

[rickudon]

Demographics …..

 

There are about 800,000 students in each year group at 20 ish. If there are 445,000 applicants, that is about 55% trying to go to University. There just are not enough graduate jobs around for them. Also the wonderful Thai education system doesn't really churn out school leavers who are capable of benefitting from a university education, unless they have good intelligence. And university is not free ….. 

 

I have seen this in my Thai family. 4 of them have gone in the last year and a half, 3 of them dropped out. They didn't really have much idea about what to do, and school didn't prepare them for it.

 

Not just a Thai problem. In the UK 50% now go to university, half get rubbish degrees and just end up with the same job, 3 years less experience and earnings, and a big debt.

[SmartyMarty]

don't panic. those 200,000 empty seats will be taken up by 500,000 ghost students.

[Fex Bluse]

Thailand has many fundamental problems.

 

Thai education is horrible - superficial and mostly useless outside Thailand.

 

Until recently, it was possible to hide this poor education behind the boundaries of a mostly closed Thai economy.

 

Now, the economy is genuinely global and Thais are competing directly with countries that take education seriously, and Thais are noticeably ill-prepared.

 

One this is certain: Thais don't have the will to change themselves at national scale, so they can count on slowly being out-competed by nearly every other country.

[Fex Bluse]

On 6/25/2019 at 8:22 AM, Yinn said:

I agree.

To many job, so easy to get the job. No need go to uni. No time for uni.

All the boss on West Coast need more workers now. Have to bring more from Burma to do it.

Not agree.

 

Problem is not about "workers". 

 

"Worker" never need university education.

 

Problem is Thailand economic is too undevelop.

 

Thailand need the "Knowledge Worker" and "Knowledge Economic" but not have.

 

I sorry for Thailand.

[Yinn]

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Not agree.

 

Problem is not about "workers". 

 

"Worker" never need university education.

I think better my doctor have uni education.

 

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

Problem is Thailand economic is too undevelop.

 

Thailand need the "Knowledge Worker" and "Knowledge Economic" but not have.

 

I sorry for Thailand.

Don’t feel sorry Fex. We ok. Life is good. Get better always.

 

 

 The Thai economy began taking off in 1970s and kept growing and growing. The GNP quadrupled between 1970 and 1990 and growth averaged 7 percent and per capita incomes tripled between 1965 and 1995 

 In the late 1980s, Thailand was on it way to joining the tigers like Taiwan and South Korea. Thailand had the world's fastest-growing economy for about a decade in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The growth rate was 8 percent between 1985 and 1995, peaking at 13.6 percent in 1988. There was a recession in the early 1990s. Severe flooding in November 1995 slowed the economy. 

 Thailand became a leading exporter of rice and Southeast Asia's largest producer of cars 

 A sizable middle class and generation of yuppies was created during the boom years in the 1980s and early 1990s. The sales of new Mercedes rose from 5,000 vehicles in 1992 to 14,082 in 1995, when Thailand became the eighth largest market for German cars and largest consumer of 12-year-old Scotch. During the mid 1990s one million Thai tourists abroad spent more than 6 million foreign visitors in Thailand. 

 Growth between 1991 and 1995 was 8.5 percent. At the end of 1996, foreign reserves exceeded $32 billion, unemployment was at 2 percent and inflation was 4.9 percent. Thailand was being hailed as the next Asian tiger. A Thai analyst told Time, "The economy was booming since 1961. By this time it really took off. It was mind-bending. Everyone was so rich." 

 From 1986 to 1989, the amount of foreign money flowing into Thailand increased 400 percent. After 1988, when Thailand posted a 13.6 growth rate. Afterwards, the pace of investment picked up as major foreign investors discovered Southeast Asia