Academic Freedom at Major Turning Point in Thailand

[KhnomKhnom]

It appears that full academic freedom is at a major turning point in Thailand, highlighted by recent conditions. Academic freedom refers to legitimate university type people doing research and reporting it honestly without considerations of bad repercussions coming back to the academic. Usually such people are employed by a school, college, or university, and sometimes by government offices. This type of free research is crucial and mandatory, first, for the progress of knowledge (in any field) and, second, to validate respect for the intellectual atmosphere of a nation.

Many nations' universities award life time job security, called tenure, to proven, established researcher/teachers to prevent any bad repercussions coming to possibly unpopular research findings. Tenure has been the bulwark of protection where offered and has established many such nations as having solid respect for intellectual pursuits and the forwarding of knowledge.

Thailand, today, lacks both academic freedom in research reporting and lacks tenured jobs, also. In the world of today where the "knowledge industry" is the most important (even above rice farming), any nation which does not protect academic freedom is automatically locking itself out of international participation--because research coming from Thailand sources must be suspect and thus can not be taken into the fold of dependable results that are useful in the academic exchange and testing of ideas and technological techniques. The practice of the scientific method is thwarted in Thailand and the world's academic researchers know it and are wary.

This is a masterful way of relegating a nation to Third World standards regardless of how many people it feeds or how many hard disk parts it produces.

An example in USA comes from the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era in which that govt told researchers what conclusions were wanted regardless of the facts those researchers knew. The result was disastrous foreign policy that included lying to the UN and starting a series of wars that rage even today. That govt broke academic freedom and thus did some very dumb things.

This need to guarantee academic freedom in Thailand is urgent and compelling. Likely there are few reforms so badly needed.

[Rimmer]

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