Thailand to develop higher education institutes

By John Le Fevre

BANGKOK (thaivisa.com): -- Thailand is to spend more than Bt10 billion (about $US293.5 million) over the next two years to increase the research capacity of Thai universities as part of the governments economic stimulus package.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva made the announcement at the Looking Beyond Globalization conference, saying higher education is crucial in upgrading the capabilities of individuals and institutions and vital for national development and modernization.

In line with this philosophy, Mr Abhisit said between seven and 10 institutions of higher learning will be upgraded to national research university level and ultimately developed into world-class research universities.

He said improved education is one of the priorities of his administration’s policy agenda and highlighted the free 15-year education program already introduced by his government.

He also pointed to support schemes such as the Educational Loan Fund introduced by his government, established to lessen inequalities in education opportunities.

Mr Abhisit said that during the past two decades opportunities had been expanded to an unprecedented extent – both in terms of the number of institutions and their distribution throughout the country.

In addition to imparting academic knowledge, Mr Abhisit said he believed that higher education should be able to make youth understand the world that they live in and be able to cope with the challenges they have to face, both in the world and in their own societies.

To meet the challenges in a globalized or post-globalized world, Mr Abhisit said Thailand’s educational institutions must be innovative, interdisciplinary, and in tune with the world as much as possible.

With these factors, more creative graduates ready to enter both the international and domestic job markets will be produced.

The Prime Minister also stressed the need to build greater autonomy at the higher education level, so that ideas, activities, and methods that are rooted in Thailand’s traditional knowledge will be developed.

According to Mr Abhisit, the big challenge is whether, or how, higher education can still engage in capacity-building.

Education is key to building a creative economy, which is vital as countries move about in this post-globalized world he said.

-- thaivisa.com 2009-07-16

It'll be good if Thailand can make some advances in research and development. There seems to be a direct connection between prosperity and R & D. Some figures I got recently for % of national budget allocated to R & D are as follows:

Finland 3.5%

Singapore 2.6%

Australia 2.0%

China 1.2%

Thailand 0.26%

Vietnam 0.2%