University challenge
by Richard Watson Todd
Education
is changing fast, both throughout the world and in Thailand. One
major change peculiar to Thailand is the change in the status of
many universities from being part of the government civil service
system to having a fair amount of independence. This change in
university status had been in the pipeline for a long time, but
was hastened by demands from the IMF as part of its conditions
for giving loans to the Thai government.
Changing the nature of Thai universities at the behest of a foreign economic institution is a suspect way of running Thai education, to say the least. If the change was made purely for economic reasons, we might expect some adverse educational consequences. However, there could also be benefits accruing to a greater amount of independence for universities.
Do the benefits outweigh the adverse consequences, or is Thai education and the future of the country being prejudiced by the IMF? Historically, Thai tertiary education has been divided into government universities and private universities, with the government universities generally viewed as more prestigious and providing a better education. This pattern was broken with the establishment of Suranaree University of Technology in Nakhon Ratchasima as a semi-autonomous institution which fit somewhere between the government and private universities.
Following the establishment of Suranaree, the Thai government made it a policy for all government universities to change their status to follow the same semi-autonomous system. King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi became the first to change its status in 1998, and now all government universities should change their status by 2002.
This change in status has been a cause of much discussion in the Thai academic community with many lecturers uncertain of what the likely effects will be.
One potentially negative effect of the change in university status which has received a lot of news coverage is a probable increase in student fees. Any increase in fees is likely to hit hardest those sections of the population most in need of education, and so should be kept to a minimum. The problem is that with their change in status, universities are expected to generate much of their own income. The easiest way to do this is to raise students fees.
To avoid this, the government must not use the change in status as an excuse to reduce financial support for universities; companies in Thailand should be encouraged to support programmes in Thai universities and to place research contracts with Thai universities. Equally, university rectors must implement programmes to support the education of poorer students and must make sure that efforts to earn money do not distract from teaching responsibilities.
Other probable effects of the change in university status, however, have potentially far wider-reaching consequences for the future of Thai education than a possible increase in student fees.
One potentially beneficial effect of the change in university status is that it gives universities more control over budgets and the direction of the university. With an effective system of administration, this could allow universities the flexibility to meet the challenges of changes in education worldwide.
One such challenge is the exponential growth in distance learning courses largely driven by the growth in the Internet. It is now, for example, possible to take an MBA at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most prestigious American universities, without leaving your house in Thailand. Even more extreme is the University of Phoenix in America which has no central campus and teaches all courses through distance learning.
Thais with sufficient English proficiency may be tempted to miss out on the social aspects of a university education and go for the cachet of a degree from, say, an American university by distance learning. If enough Thais did this, there would be a reduction in the pool of potential students for Thai universities with a possible consequent shrinkage in both tertiary teaching and university research in Thailand. Thai universities, therefore, need to be able to confront this challenge to retain the importance of tertiary education in Thailand.
A second possible challenge facing Thai universities is changes in the nature of the students. In the UK, traditionally the vast majority of university students were 18 to 22-year-old middle class students. Nowadays, however, the typical student profile is very different with a large proportion of mature students.
We might expect that in the future Thailand might undergo a similar change in student profile, and at present universities are not prepared to meet the challenges arising from such changes. With more independence from the change in status, if managed properly, universities could be flexible enough to meet such challenges.
However, the independence, which leads to greater flexibility, also opens up Thai tertiary education to abuse. More independence means that ensuring the quality of education is problematic.
Already, before any changes in status, universities have been criticised concerning quality assurance. For example, with Banharn Silpa-archa's controversial Masters thesis, whatever the truth concerning who wrote it, the mere fact that the process of writing a thesis could be open to question suggests quality control problems. More recently, Ramkhamhaeng University has been criticised for offering a degree in political science which appears to be tailor-made for politicians and, some have suggested, of questionable quality.
Criticisms like these may become more frequent as universities grow independent. Effective systems of quality assurance must be implemented to retain public confidence in tertiary education.
As more and more universities change their status, a decision needs to be made as to whether quality assurance should be the concern of each university separately or whether a system applicable to all universities should be implemented.
The former would lead to a hodgepodge of different systems of quality control as each university does its own thing, and is more open to corruption. The latter allows greater comparison between universities (which the public would probably welcome, but which weaker universities would probably fight against), is more reliable, but runs the danger of drowning lecturers in bureaucracy.
If the latter option of a general system applicable to all universities is chosen, on what basis should the quality of universities be evaluated? The UK educational system provides an instructive model here. All faculties at all universities are evaluated regularly and given marks for research quality and teaching quality.
The quality of research is measured by asking all lecturers to provide copies of their three best academic publications over the previous five years, a criterion which many Thai lecturers might have trouble fulfilling.
The quality of teaching is assessed by looking at a wide range of criteria including aims and design of courses, student achievement, observation of teaching, and facilities for students.
Evaluating the quality of teaching is open to corruption and may lead to excessive paperwork for teachers if care is not taken. Situations where universities have to employ three or four staff members simply to cope with quality evaluations should be avoided. Nevertheless, the need to ensure quality in university education means that attempts to assess teaching and research quality must be made.
A further possible effect of the change in university status is that universities will need to become clearer about their goals.
At present, most Thai universities give a much greater priority to teaching than to research or community development, while at the same time paying lip-service to the goal of becoming a research university. Furthermore, many universities feel obliged to continually expand, adding more and more faculties and departments in an attempt to provide education in all academic disciplines.
The consequence of such a lack of focus is that many universities run the risk of being a jack-of-all-trades, but truly proficient at nothing.
With universities becoming independent, there is likely to be more competition between universities. To survive in a competitive environment, universities need to be well-known, attractive and prestigious in order to draw in students and other sources of income.
Having no clear focus and being mediocre at everything is not going to gain a university the prestige it needs to prosper. There are, however, several routes available to prestige.
The one most commonly aspired to is to become a well-known research university. At present in Thailand, however, the available resources would probably only support five or six research universities. If all Thai universities aspire to this, many will be disappointed.
An alternative route to prestige is to concentrate university resources in those areas where the university is strongest. A generally weak university, then, may become well-known for its teaching and research in, say, management science.
A third possibility is to strive to be a paragon of teaching excellence. If universities are assessed and compared on quality of teaching, being top of the list could draw large numbers of students irrespective of research quality.
Finally, a university could work hard in the areas of community development and continuing education to generate a large amount of goodwill and support from the community.
Most universities do not have the resources to take more than one or two of these routes, so to prosper in a competitive educational environment, tough decisions of what to focus on may need to be taken.
Overall then, with the exception of possible increases in fees, the potential consequences of greater independence for universities may prove beneficial in the long run. If this is so, why are many university lecturers against any change in the status of universities? Some may be worried about inequalities resulting from increases in student fees, some may be against any change in status on principle, but many are worried about their own job security.
At universities within the government system, lecturers are civil servants and some regard their positions as a sinecure for life. I once met a university lecturer whose teaching load was two hours per week, and who felt no need to undertake any other responsibilities except for the arduous task of turning up for work and reading the newspaper for a couple of hours a day.
In a semi-autonomous university with greater quality assurance and accountability of teachers, such a teacher would not last long. Clearly, it is in that teacher's interest to criticise and try to prevent any change in university status. Although some of the criticisms of changes in university status are made from positions of genuine concern, many of the arguments against a semi-autonomous status are arguments made from self-interest.
The proposal to change the status of government universities in Thailand, forced through for economic reasons, should provide many opportunities for growth for Thai universities. With a forward-looking and competent administration, a Thai university, although facing many challenges, is in a position to use its independence to develop itself and to promote a better future for Thai education
Richard Watson Todd teaches at Department of Applied Linguistics, School of Liberal Arts, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi.
Bangkok Post, May 14, 2000