Focus On Thai Educational Strengths, Govt Told

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Focus on Thai educational strengths, govt told

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation

With demand for education growing and student mobility increasing due to globalisation and internationalisation, Thailand must act now or risk lagging behind other countries in this field. Relevant agencies are starting to encourage the Education Ministry to seriously strengthen the country's transnational education (TNE).

In particular, they have urged the ministry to promote TNE by focusing on those educational fields in which the country has already gained acceptance, instead of pushing Thailand as an education hub, arguing that the latter strategy is too difficult to achieve, Sudhasinee Vajrabul, deputy secretary general of the Office of the Education Council (OEC), said yesterday. Sudhasinee was speaking after a meeting with representatives from the Commerce Ministry's Department of Trade Negotiations (DTN), the Office of Higher Education Commission, the Office of Vocational Education Commission, and universities.

They agreed that the ministry should promote Thailand as hub in the medical; nursing; tourism; service and hospitality; food; and agricultural fields. These fields were accepted internationally, so Thailand would be able to succeed more easily in promoting these specific fields, rather than relying solely on the education hub strategy, to which the overall quality of education and English language literacy in the country are important barriers, they said.

Sudhasinee said the OEC would present the proposals to Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul for consideration next Monday(Dec26) to seriously push Thailand's TNE forward.

"Universities in Thailand have provided international education, which is part of TNE, but it is like fashion. Some universities have opened international programmes just to promote themselves, but they are unable to generate profit. International education in Thailand is seen as second-class international education. Thus, we have to seriously provide quality programmes to lure more foreign students," Dhurakij Pundit University (DPU)'s vice president, Prof Paitoon Sinlarat, said.

He recommended the universities add something special or unique to their international programmes that students could not learn in other countries, like indigenous drugs, to make their programmes more attractive.

In addition to offering English language instruction, Paitoon urged officials to promote Thai language and Thai studies among Asean countries to increase the country's influence in the region, which is similar to what China has done. The idea was backed by many participants at the meeting.

More people in Asean - especially in Vietnam - are studying the Thai language, according to information presented at the meeting.

DTN official Ronnarong Poonpipat said Thailand should promote four areas of education to drive TNE - distance or online education; international education that brings foreign students to study in the country; international education in which foreign universities open branches or offshore campuses in Thailand; and "flying teacher" programmes.

"The Asean Economic Community is coming in the next three years... If we don't prepare for changes in education, Thailand will become a new educational market for other Other countries which have prepared an aggressive TNE strategy," Sudhasinee said.

OEC secretary-general Anek Permvongseni said he planned to host a national conference on TNE to discuss the issue more thoroughly, and a regional conference with Asean countries to learn from their experiences in promoting TNE.

"Singapore and Malaysia have aggressively promoted TNE. We should learn from them."

Agreeing that disjointed educational policies formulated by different political parties when they come to power posed a crucial obstacle, the meeting's participants agreed to look for ways to develop more seamless policies.

-- The Nation 2011-12-20

[BigJohnnyBKK]

What a farce. If Thai is being learned in other Asean countries, you can bet it's in the same context as Russians learning Afghani in the 80's, and only by people that have already mastered Chinese and/or English first.

Comparing Thailand's potential influence with China's - words fail.

If and when there is more freedom of competition within Asean, Thailand will find itself at tremendous disadvantages - Vietnam's a perfect example, very clever and hard-working people. Even the Cambodians are better English students, and the top half of the IQ gene pool was totally wiped out along with **all** educational infrastructure less than thirty years ago!

Then setting a priority to encourage short-term profits from trying to educate students from other countries, setting something so trivial above trying to fix the fundamental problems admitted here . . .

I really don't know what to say, I cry for the Thais.

[xthAi76s]

Wow, how delusional. Would the 'highly' educated spend time learning Thai instead of Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, etc? "Education hub"?! I can't even encourage my fingers to type what I feel. These guys are completely nuts. "Similar to what China has done"? Thailand is not China. They are not similarly positioned at all. People don't want to learn Thai. And, Thailand does not treat outsiders well, by and large. Cambodians and Vietnamese learning Thai? I mean, maybe, if they are Chinese immigrants -- like has always been the case. Who else, the laborers who themselves probably can't even speak their own languages well? I don't know. Doesn't add up. There is almost 0 worth in speaking Thai. Even in Thailand, one could argue that you are better off if you speak English (if you speak only one language).

[Scott]

A troll post has been deleted.