OPINION

Why Thailand 4.0 will not join the ranks of South Korea, Taiwan

By Michael Shafer 
Special to The Nation

 

Everyone repeats the “4.0 economy” mantra as if repetition will mobilise Thailand from middle-income doldrums to developed dynamism. Ministries are conjured, regulations rolled out, policies promulgated, funds found. To what end?

There are two troublesome questions:

 

• What is a 4.0 economy?

• What is 4.0 in the modern global division of labour?

 

The answers suggest that Thailand underestimates the challenge it confronts. In fact, the challenge today is whether Thailand can increase its human capital base fast enough to maintain middle-income status. 

 

What is the discussion of 4.0 about? First and foremost, it is about hardware and building networks to connect the hardware. Second, it is about basic computer literacy. This means training teachers and lecturers to teach students to use computers. In principle, the time will come when Thailand can train 100 per cent of required skilled workers, instead of the current 50 per cent. 

 

As hardware, networking and computer-competent new hires spread, Thai companies should be able to join the computer age. 

 

But is this a 4.0 economy understood as “developed”?

 

No. This is a computer-enabled economy.

 

Why isn’t this the real thing?

 

Because it is passive. It is about borrowing and importing someone else’s knowledge work.

 

Put it this way. If you turn on your computer, open Word, and write an original poem, you have created something. Just knowing how to turn on a computer and open Word, however, does not mean that you possess more than basic computer literacy. It does not mean that you can operate a numerically controlled cutting machine, write code, design new chips or create any other intellectual property.

 

“So what?” you ask.

 

Here we arrive at the second question: What is 4.0 in the modern global division of labour?

 

The “global division of labour” is the relationship among countries in the global economy. Imagine a ladder with a few developed countries perched on the top rung and a larger and larger number of lesser and lesser developed countries scrabbling for each lower rung. At the top is where the knowledge work gets done and new technologies get created. Because these countries innovate the newest, coolest stuff, their products sell for the most and their people get rich. The next rung is for middle-income countries that manufacture high-end commodities for the top dogs. They must be able to use fancy tech to make this stuff, but the manufacturing technology, like the products, comes from above. Workers are skilled but not innovative, and they earn well, but less than those at the top. At the third level are the producers of industrial basics – steel is the usual example.

 

Work is largely routine; workers earn less than their middle-income country counterparts do. At the bottom, savagely contesting the lowest rung of the ladder are the myriad countries with nothing to sell but the poverty of their people, countries that compete to produce the lowest skilled, lowest value products for the lowest prices. 

What does this have to do with 4.0?

 

Everything.

 

The global division of labour is not static. It is dynamic and savagely competitive. It is challenging to move up the division of labour, as South Korea and Taiwan did and Thailand presumes to do. It is also challenging just to keep one’s place on the ladder.

 

Here is where 4.0 matters for Thailand. 4.0 is Thailand’s investment in maintaining its middle-income rank. 

 

Why?

 

Because while Thailand needs computers and networks, human capital determines a country’s rank in the global division of labour.

 

Human capital, however, is Thailand’s greatest weakness. Always a global and regional educational laggard, Thailand fared dangerously badly in a major recent study of Asian digital competence. Compared to 11 of its regional rivals, Thailand ranked 10th behind even Malaysia and Indonesia. 

 

Reading the report, what stands out? Tenth in computer-savvy human capital.

 

This is not an “escape the middle-income doldrums” problem. This is a “hang onto the middle-income rung of the ladder” problem. 

 

What makes investment in IT-capable and IT-inventive human capital so critical to maintaining Thailand’s current, privileged position in the global division of labour?

 

The multinational corporations located in Thailand know that in the coming decades, they will require an increasingly sophisticated, IT-capable workforce. To date, Thailand has “solved” the problem of its failure to educate a sufficient number of skilled workers by depending on the multinational companies to provide their own “Honda University” and “General Dynamics University” to up-skill what the Thai labour market offers. Today, as other well-placed, politically stable, Asian countries invest in luring new multinationals with their large investments in high-quality human capital, why should such companies continue to welcome the burden of training a workforce that is further and further behind the skill curve?

 

Multinationals bring products, production technology and global market networks. They look to their hosts to provide what they cannot – transportation, communications, financial and government services and, most important, human capital investments of a size and quality commensurate with their own investment.

 

Such companies are the foundation of Thailand’s middle-income status. Will today’s tech drive keep them invested for now? We can only hope so. It is clear, however, that this is not the real question. The real challenge is tougher. Will it be possible to overcome the entrenched failure of the educational bureaucracy in time to secure Thailand a solid grip on an upper rung in the global division of labour?

 

Michael Shafer is director of the Warm Heart Foundation, based in A Phrao, Chiang Mai.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30325344

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-08-31

If the basics in education are lacking, then there is nothing in which to build upon.  Vast majority of technology related material is written in English. 

 

In terms of hardware, any old computer will do in learning how to program, as most of the software powering the world is free.  You just download and install it. 

2117 Thailand.

 

"You want massage? Where you go?"

 

 

to overcome their own culture of endless corruption and horrible educational system and brainwashing will require a top to bottom revolution. And they will have to realize that their entire culture is totally unsuited to completing in the modern world.    

 

sadly, because of this, all Thais have learned to do is copy. as long as it is something simple.

 

that is why you see the same businesses over and over again.

 

the same shop houses, laundry, massage, restaurants and mom and pop stores. And the same mistakes repeated over and over. They still don't understand something as basic as the importance of the third wire for electrical ground. And they don't want to hear it.

 

at the same time, there are very intelligent Thais trying to do their best with what they have to work with. Very smart people who have overcome a lack of education or did self education who have built businesses and are making a lot of money. you will see them here in Hua Hin.

 

and you will notice that cellphone towers get built to western standards, and the CP 7/11 supply chain is very modern. but again, just importing from the west.

 

I come out of a television back ground in the USA, and Thais have mastered the technical end of television production, something that is very complicated. Program content is another thing.

 

and perhaps worst of all, they are also falling into the same debt trap the banks have created in the west, buying their new pickup trucks and houses.

 

Edited August 31, 20178 yr by NCC1701A

Yes, very troublesome questions. Because T 4.0 means nothing but pure b.s.

Every now and again my boss goes away for work (holidays) and comes back with these big ideas and buzzwords. We have a meeting and she tells us how they're doing it in Singapore, New Zealand, etc. She tells us and asks us to implement the same ideas at work. 

 

Every now and again my boss takes all the staff for lunch. She tells us in Thai and English where we're going and what time we are leaving. The foreigners are all ready to leave at the time stated, and the Thai staff are doing something else and sending messages on Line group chat like; "What time are we leaving?" "Where are we going?".

 

While the foreign staff and a few of the Thai staff have their heads in their hands at the disorganization, I'm just used to it and it doesn't faze me. I just do my own thing at work, and I'm 99% left alone. If you want things to change, sometimes you have to completely take it apart and start again. 

4 hours ago, webfact said:

This means training teachers and lecturers to teach students to use computers

From what I've gathered, the students could teach the teachers and lecturers about computers! 

 

And perhaps that  is where there could be some positivity. computing does allow and nurture creative thinking, something that the regular Thai education system does not. 

6 minutes ago, maxpower said:

The "space cadets" program was an overwhelming success so far. To use football jargon to describe the situation:

Thailand 0.4 -South Korea 4 and Thailand 0.4 - Taiwan 4

Education in Korea and Taiwan is light years a head of Thailand. It would take Thailand another 20 years if they are to achieve what Korea and Taiwan have accomplished, and thats if the education overhaul starts now.

4.0 means playing intensive

with their smartphones everytime and everywhere. Thats all.

Edited August 31, 20178 yr by tomacht8

5 hours ago, jerojero said:

Yes, very troublesome questions. Because T 4.0 means nothing but pure b.s.

Totally useless terminology used to placate the masses and enhance the 'importance' of current leadership. Thai 4.0 = Zero! 

11 hours ago, webfact said:

It is about borrowing and importing someone else’s knowledge work.

The sentence must be: It is about steeling and copying someone else's knowlegde !!!
They have been doing this for decades !!! 

 

Even our developed software is available on the illegal markets in Thailand.

Lately they've changed the copywrite and the README files so it looked like they wrote it but they didn't know where to look for the hidden markers, as all our developed software have.. We were accused of copying their software.. All the way to court and there we showed the hidden markers inside the software... Our website got blocked and it has costs us lots of time and money to have had sorted out everything. It is the Thai way to get rid of the competition and developers, getting full appreciation / recognition themselves. Investing in Thailand... In their wet dreams !!!

Edited August 31, 20178 yr by PAIBKK

 

The further they edge toward the precipice, the greater becomes their delusionality.

 

See also:  https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/999576-cashless-society-seen-in-three-years/

 

It's denial isn't it?.......the core of Tragedy.

 

It really has gone beyond comment, except perhaps: "sauve qui peut".

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 20178 yr by Enoon

Wait up here; who of importance would benefit from this better educated Thai school system? The rich and powerful like it the way it is, they are in charge, so it will remain static to serve them. 

Thailand has done well the last 3/4 decades because it was the only non-communist country in SE Asia that Japan could or would set up factories in.  As soon as Cambodia or Burma or Vietnam show that they are 'with' the Free Enterprise system like Taiwan and South Korea , well then the factories will move to there.

On 8/31/2017 at 8:57 AM, NCC1701A said:

and perhaps worst of all, they are also falling into the same debt trap the banks have created in the west, buying their new pickup trucks and houses.

and new , expensive smartphones for all members of the family , every 15 months

No worries, they can always join North Korea. Better match anyway.