EDITORIAL

Thailand must put more emphasis on technical studies

By The Nation

Vocational and technical colleges have a poor reputation as second-grade choices, but the economy depends on the skills taught in them

While the jury is still out on whether Deputy Minister of Education Narisara Chawaltanpipat's highly-publicised campaign to promote vocational colleges is a success or not, it makes sense for Thailand to reform technical and vocational colleges in order to change the narrow view that our society tends to have of them.

For decades technical and vocational colleges have been essential in producing technicians to serve the country's economic development. Unfortunately these institutions have generally been viewed by students and parents as a next-best choice after, for instance, a liberal arts degree. This is despite the fact that vocational colleges provide students with hands-on experience and on-the-job training that is both relevant and practical, as compared to the rote learning style that many other educational institutions offer to their students.

It would have been impossible for Thailand to achieve its current level of economic progress without the skills taught at these colleges, and the technical workers they produce will continue to be essential members of the workforce.

The problem is that Thais tend to have a higher opinion of students with a university degree. Technical students are considered to occupy a lower rung on the educational and career ladder. In addition the long-standing problem of brawls between students of vocational colleges does nothing to help attract top-notch students and lecturers to some of these colleges.

As a result of these problems and perceptions the Thai educational system tends to produce a surplus of arts graduates while the country faces a shortage of skilled labour to serve the growth of industry and agricultural science.

Reform of vocational colleges is thus important to develop the country's human resources and educational staff. It is essential that greater efforts are made to upgrade the quality of education and training at these institutions.

The educational environment should be intellectually stimulating and safe. In addition, as the pace of technological development continues to increase, constant revision and adjustment of the curriculum is needed to ensure that the new generation of Thai technicians will be equipped with relevant and practical knowledge and skills. Critical areas in the future will include the application of energy-saving and telecommunications technologies.

The improved training of technicians will also serve the country's plan to produce more entrepreneurs, especially those who can excel due to their technological know-how. This will fit in well with the plan to promote more small and medium-sized businesses.

Cooperation with the private sector should also be further promoted. Various types of industrial-educational cooperation programmes can be explored. For instance, the Map Ta Phut Technical College in Rayong recently announced that its chemical engineering students will have a chance to spend a period of time working at petrochemical plants located at the huge industrial estate in the area.

If Thailand can improve the quality of its technical and vocational colleges, it could also have a beneficial effect on traditional schools. The strength of these colleges lies in their curricula. All students should, from an early age, learn to create things, learn to solve problems, and learn to work in groups. This is essential in promoting self-esteem - which is something that cannot be imparted through the failed rote learning system that the country persists with.

Western schools have long included such subjects as woodwork and metalwork in their curricula, allowing children to experience a creative craft and the opportunity to be proud of what they can achieve. The infusion of such experiences can encourage a new generation of Thai students to become more creative instead of simply repeating rote lessons. They would thus soon learn to appreciate the value of hard work and effort that they invest in their studies.

This kind of hands-on, practical education can help young people discover where their best aptitude lies, perhaps outside of academic learning. Many students may be failing to realise their abilities because they are being taught things that do not reflect their true character and ability.

We owe it to them to provide the opportunities to develop their innate talents and abilities.

-- The Nation 2011-02-05

Every one is judged by their employment; they see white collar very separate with blue collar jobs. As if working with hands is below lower class....

I've done some hiring lately, in northern Thailand. It's for an outdoor adventure park with physically challenging activities. I wound up hiring mostly hill tribers because they can relate to physical challenges. However, the kitchen chef is Thai, his helpers hill tribe. 5 of the guides are Thai (students of Tourism at a local college), though because they're spooked by some of the physical challenges, the leader guides are hill tribe.

Generally, both Thais and hill tribers are not reliable, in regards to showing up when they say they will.

I've noticed Thais can function rather well when their job is tightly defined - but to try to get them functioning outside their familiar 'box' of knowledge is challenging.

Its very much an Asian issue not wanting to be an engineer. In the past I travelled and did alot of technical work though SE Asia on mobile phone networks, based out of Singapore. The view of most technical graduates is that they want to be an engineer for a couple of years and then become some form of manager and work their way up the company. This works well for engineers who are not good technically (who may be better people managers), however good engineers tend to make lousy management!

Anyway, my experience was that when engineers started to become technically useful and knowledgeable, they would be promoted or move to another company that offered a 'management' role. Thus you ended up with low skilled technical departments and companies overloaded with middle management without much to do! This is very different to the European/American way of thinking where people want to become engineers, and then excel is some technical area, and they stay in technical indefinitely. Hence why I used to see lots of experts being sent out from the US/Europe to backup the poorly technical Asian subsidiaries.

I think the general consensus in Asia is that being technical means you have failed to succeed, and there is alot of loss of face (not only Thai but other Asian cultures). Hence everyone wants to be in management and climbing the corporate ladder. Maybe Asian companies also don't respect technical skills?

Its also one of the reasons why I don't work in Asia any more... In Europe I am an experienced technical consultant; in Asia I am grouped in with the guys that fix motorbikes and lifts!

A few years ago I got involved in helping Thai graduating seniors write resumes, CV's.

I even taught an evening course in CV writing.

But I never got really involved in the individuals writing process. I only instructed them as a class and since most of my students were adults they had some work experience in addition to College.

One thing led to another and I began trying to help individual students compose a specific resume for a specific company.

I have a big vocabulary and lie easily and effortlessly so I was an ace at the job.

As I wrote more resumes I began to notice a disturbing trend. None of the young men had worked a part time job during high school or college. And they considered it beneath them to have done so. Not only that, they had not learned anything practical in college. I questioned and questioned but could find nothing they had studied or that they knew anything about that was even remotely connected to the practical business world.

The engineering and medical school graduates were OK but the rest had wasted 4 years. Marketing degrees and business and things like that taught them nothing. Coupled with no work experience I was at a loss to what kind of employment they would find. They, however were unconcerned. Daddy's pull was going to find them employment.

I am not an expert but it was my feeling that any post high school study that is not technical in Thailand is a complete waste of time.

Thailand is not alone in this problem but the fact that Thai college graduates are hesitant to get their hands dirty exaggerates the problem.

Anytime Thailand wants anything done of a technical nature they have to hire outside help to do the project. The answer is of course technical training and technical degrees and a good swift kick in the as* for the pompous peacocks graduating with useless degrees to the countries welfare. It all goes back to the surf and lord attitude still so prevalent in Thai culture. Even when the surfs get some education/success they begin to act like lords and the second generation is stuck in being useless popinjays all over again.

I had a friend who made a small fortune running construction crews for the US Army in the 1960's. Hard working man and wife. After the US Army left he went on to the Middle East and did the same thing. Banked a lot of cash, big house and cars in Bangkok and put both his boys through good colleges. Both of the boys are arrogant twits who are afraid to get their hands dirty and actually do some work. I feel sorry for the old guy. He is at a loss of what to do with his boys.

The answer is to change the culture to reward performance rather than patronage but I don't see that happening anytime soon. All the heroes are not self made men but men who were born to the right parents.

Its very much an Asian issue not wanting to be an engineer. In the past I travelled and did alot of technical work though SE Asia on mobile phone networks, based out of Singapore. The view of most technical graduates is that they want to be an engineer for a couple of years and then become some form of manager and work their way up the company. This works well for engineers who are not good technically (who may be better people managers), however good engineers tend to make lousy management!

Anyway, my experience was that when engineers started to become technically useful and knowledgeable, they would be promoted or move to another company that offered a 'management' role. Thus you ended up with low skilled technical departments and companies overloaded with middle management without much to do! This is very different to the European/American way of thinking where people want to become engineers, and then excel is some technical area, and they stay in technical indefinitely. Hence why I used to see lots of experts being sent out from the US/Europe to backup the poorly technical Asian subsidiaries.

I think the general consensus in Asia is that being technical means you have failed to succeed, and there is alot of loss of face (not only Thai but other Asian cultures). Hence everyone wants to be in management and climbing the corporate ladder. Maybe Asian companies also don't respect technical skills?

Its also one of the reasons why I don't work in Asia any more... In Europe I am an experienced technical consultant; in Asia I am grouped in with the guys that fix motorbikes and lifts!

Do you include Japan and Korea in your definition of Asian? Just wondered.

I would exclude Japan and Korea. They are very similar and we all know their technical prowess! I also worked in Japan for 7 months; they are obsessed with perfection and detail!