Thailand needs more qualified researchers

[Commander Tamson]

When I completed my engineering-based Masters qualification in UK many years ago, I looked at pursuing a Doctorate, more out of curiosity than with any real intention of actually going ahead with it. All the Doctorate routes I looked at were research-based. In addition, all my Uni lecturers qualified to use the title "Doctor" had followed research-based routes to the qualification.

Now I'm in Thailand, I know a number of people who have completed or are in the process of studying for Doctorates at Thai universities. All of these people work in the field of education. Of those I've spoken to, all have followed TAUGHT Doctorates rather than research-based Doctorates, so far as I can understand, given the small communication problems between us - they had to attend classroom lectures rather than pursue their own original line of research.

Now it might be that Doctorates in the fields I've mentioned - engineering & education - are peculiar in that one appears to be entirely research-based while the other is entirely based on taught study but, if taught Doctorates are the norm in Thailand, how can they hope to produce good researchers? Research is a specialised field requiring good tuition & supervision in research techniques and not everybody has the aptitude for it or desire to do it.

completely agreed !

I doubt, very doubt research-based studies could fit into the Thai system. the Thai ( or even Asian education ) is not based on developing individual thought skills, therefore a taught-based education well fitted into the situation.

anyone went through 18 to 20 years of taught-based followership education till undergrad, he or she would not able to switch to the research-based exploration and discovery in the post grad.

The above two posts hit the nail right on the head! They kindly call it taught-based however, whereas I would call it spoon-fed!!

A big problem as I see it, is that the same spoon fed degree system is now also fully in place in the west. When I did my engineering degree,in the UK, back in the early eighties, only about 5 to 7% of the population went to University. And there was certainly no spoon feeding; even at the basic BSc Hons level. You attended lectures & labs (or not) and then turned up for the exams. The only tutorial was on how to effectively use the library. Most of your time was spent in the library or in small, self setup, study groups. Then a certain Labour government came to power who insisted that 50% of the population should be attending higher education. When the initial results were piss poor, they allowed polytechnics and other further education colleges to offer degrees (spoon fed degrees) resulting in kids with degrees but who had no idea of how to think for themselves.

[KuhnPaen]

Interesting.

I wonder who researched this.

[nong38]

A few years ago I was in a sauna in the Elstree Moat House north of London got to talking to a lady in there, she spoke perfect English, then she told me she was going to take her English Exam! She was not from England but from Eastern Europe, the hardest part of the Exam for her was this, the language she did not have a problem with, but, she had to THINK LIKE AN ENGLISH PERSON when she took the exam. when we are in Thailand we need to try and think like a Thai does, it makes life easier then, we can adapt to that far easier than a Thai can visa versa, it is literally alien to them, they would never think of it.

[nong38]

Now I am telling you I did not post that 4 times earlier, but this is Thailand.