54.3 The Importance of Educational System
Thailand’s education budget was accounted for 3-4 of the gross domestic products. A
significant amount of budget was spent on higher education.
The number of students entering higher education had declined from34.9 in 2005 to
24.2 in 2006. For the vocational education, most students were in the age range of 15-17 years old.
The proportion of the students in this educational level had increased from 21.5 in 2004 to 24.2 in
2006.
Office of the National Education Commission 2011 has reviewed the current situation of
vocational education in Thailand and provided strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as
follows; Strengths
1. There are more than 800 vocational education
institutions publicprivate all over the country.
2. There are 9 ministries responsible for human
resource development. This can provide a variety of curricular and different forms of
training to suit target groups.
3. The number of private vocational institutions
is quite high, about 345. This shows their interest
in participating
in vocational
education. Weaknesses
1. There is a lack of unity in terms of policy
guidelines. The country does not have a master plan for human resource development.
Therefore, the
provision of
vocational education is more supply-driven.
2. The most crucial problem is quality of the
output. A significant number of graduates have weaknesses in both theory and practice.
The issues of curriculum and the process of training must be addressed.
3. The lack of RD on vocational education to
produce new technology and also generate new jobs.
4. The lack of qualified and experienced
teachers. Most teachers do not have direct experience in the industry.
5. The lack of incentives for vocational teachers.
6. The lack of cooperation between vocational
institutions and the industry. Opportunities
1. The constitution of 1997 and the National
Education Act 1999 give high priority to education and vocational education.
2. Private organizations, such as the Federation
of Thai Industry, the Council of Thai Commerce, are keen to play a role in the
policy process, standard setting, quality assurance, and training activities.
3. The cabinet has just approved in principle on
Skill Development Fund about 300 million baht which could promote the concept of
lifelong learningtraining. 4.
Thailand has an expanding infrastructure on information technology which could be
utilized for vocational education and training. 5.
The society is well aware of education and work. In the past, people had more value on
certificate and diploma. 6.
Thai labor force has a good potential. In the Skill Olympics, Thailand has improved every
year from 1993-1999. Threats
1. The economic crisis in Thailand has made it
very difficult to improve vocational education, particularly on large investments.
2. The state policy is not sustained due to the
frequent change of governments. 3.
Based on the existing human resource development programs, it is expected that
Thailand would have a shortage in human resources in many industrial areas for the near
future. In addition, Fry2002 suggested several
crucial issues which occurred in the Thai educational systems, including higher education in
Thailand. The first issue is about lack of unity and coordination
of diverse
and fragmented
Educationhuman resources development efforts. Secondly, the problem is regard to overemphasis on
bricks and mortar relative to investing in people teacher learners; researchers. Thirdly, inadequate
utilization
of information
communication technology
for improving
human resource
development led to the delay and inefficiency in the development process.
According to the research report of Office of the Education Council 2004, another important
issue in public funding to public educational institutions showed two major problems, an
inefficient and ineffective financial management system and uneven advantage over private
educational institutions. From statistics, over 70 percent of operating cost came from government
budget while the rest of approximately 25 percent are from tuition fees. Comparing to the tuition fees
of the private institutions, public institutions have three to five times lower. Another main problem of
public fund was inadequacy of the budget. Most of the budget was spent on maintaining the operations,
30 were on buildings and equipments and limited amount of budget was left for quality development
projects.
However, the evidence from the United States indicated
that funding
problems may
be unavoidable when the cause of the problem is
external. According to NCSL Fiscal Affairs Program 2011, funding for all educational
systems was reduced significantly and the major cause of the problem was economic recession. The
economic recession has negative impact on public
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funding for education and the chronic decline in the US economy has resulted in lower public funding to
schools and universities throughout the country NCSL Fiscal Affairs Program, 2011.
Thailand’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry and Education
Tourism has been on one of the most important national goals and several ministries
including Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Foreign
Affairs have plans and policies related in promoting tourism related activities and events.
Tourism industry has always been the focus of the economic development in Thailand for many years.
For the economic perspective, Thai tourism industry is one of the most important industries
with its contribution to the economy for approximately 7 Tourism Review, 2010. For the
support of the government in the tourism industry, according to Country Report 2009, the Thai
government has provided the stimulus packages of Bt1.4trn US40bn in the special program focusing
on the infrastructure projects and more investment in three main areas, including tourism, health and
education.
Edgell, Allen, Smith and Swanson 2008 highlighted the important factors for development
of the professionalism of the workforce in tourism and hospitality industry to meet with ever-changing
global demand. The foundation of success in the professionalism of the workforce lies heavily on
tourism education and training programs in which the whole process of education has to be taken into
consideration from high school to higher education. To provide sufficient infrastructure for the new
challenge of the industry, educators have to work closely with employers and other stakeholders to be
certain that all resources and tools are well- equipped and high degree of readiness for
providing education and training for the students to improve their knowledge and skills. Matching the
expectation in both quality and quantity of tourism and hospitality workers is the great challenge for all
stakeholders.
To provide the education system to support the work in the industry, educators and stakeholders
have to be able to understand the meaning and definitions of the work environment. For tourism,
Baum 1995 mentioned that there is no easy way to describe the term “tourism”, because the area of
tourism has included the range of scopes such as travel
and transportation,
catering, accommodations, recreation and sports, culture,
history and heritage, natural sites, built attractions, events, retailing, conferences and conventions,
tourism and hospitality information and facilitation; and tourism hospitality support services. Moreover,
the scope of tourism has continued to change and be broader over time.
Mulcahy 1998 pointed out that to determine the economic competitiveness of the country, this
relies on the quality of training and education is considered the most crucial factor and the emphasis
on the quality has to be revised and be on the path of continuous improvement for the sustainability of
the education development in the areas of tourism and hospitality.
Edgell, Allen, Smith and Swanson 2008 had suggested that model of tourism education policy as
shown in Figure 2. The figure provided the relationships among tourism environment and
world of education through mechanism of government policy on education and tourism and
lastly tourism education can be successful if the main focus is on the implementation of all the
policies.
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Source: Edgell, Allen, Smith and Swanson 2008 p.244 Figure 2.
Tourism Education Policy-Tourism Education Implementation Model According to Thailand Tourism Development Research Institute 2011, several of educational institutions
offered the tourism and hospitality programs as shown in the table below. Table 3.
Types of Educational Institutions and the Number of Educational Institutions with Tourism and Hospitality Programs in Thailand
Types The number of Educational Institutions with
Tourism and Hospitality Programs in Thailand
Public University 16
Private University 14
Rajabhat University formerly known as the teachers
colleges 34
Vocational Educations 19
Source: Thailand Tourism Development Research Institute 2011 From the table above, there are only 19
educational institutions in vocational education offers the tourism and hospitality related programs.
At the university level, there are 64 institutions, both public and private, providing from bachelor’s
degree to doctoral level in this areas. Clearly, the supply of workforce is limited at the vocational
level and this causes the shortages in supply for the labor in this group, which is highly important to the
tourism and hospitality industry. One explanation for the small number of vocational education is that
the Thai social value in education prefers bachelor’s degree and this causes the problems in
the large number of graduates who have bachelor’s degree while the significant number of jobs require
the educational level of vocational education. This creates the gap between demand and supply in that
job and recruitment markets, Rupavijetra2011. In response to the lack of supply from the vocational
level, some private sectors, especially hotels, in
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Thailand started their own institutions to provide skills and knowledge matched to their customer
demands and to offer additional channels for those interested in learning and skill development in the
hospitality industry. The example is Dusit Thani College, under Dusit Thani Group of companies,
also known as Dusit International, a Bangkok-based hotel and resort company Dusit Thani College,
2011. The company provides education and training through its own infrastructure and
investments.
Hong 2009 noted the importance of workforce or human resources by concluding that
human resources development for supporting tourism industry can be considered endogenous
comparative advantages.
To develop
this advantage, the main focus is on education in
commerce, training on job and protection of natural resources.
Additionally, investments
in infrastructure are highly necessary for supporting
the development of tourism environments, such as accessibility
design, accommodations,
and transportation systems.
In order to solve the barriers of educational development, Elliott and Smith 2005 suggested
the collaboration among stakeholders, for example, the tourism and hospitality industry needs to partner
with government and educators to effectively apply newly accessible technologies, tools, processes and
methods, such as e-learning or distance learning to provide effective training and education for their
workforce.
Among all the challenges in the educational systems for supporting tourism and hospitality
industry, Thai government projected that in year 2015, the demand for workforce in several areas,
including tourism, automobile parts and electronics is expected to be significantly increased. In
addition, the need for workforce in these industries requires 90 from vocational education while only
10 from higher education. This highlights the demand for labors from vocational education to
increase from 40 to 60. Therefore, educational institutions
have to
cooperate with
their stakeholders including businesses and government
agencies to support the new trend Thaipost,2011. Considering all related concerns and issues,
the author provided the model including important factors and stakeholders which have to cooperate
effectively to generate the effective educational infrastructure and lead to workforce development in
tourism and hospitality industry as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. The Conceptual Model of Educational Infrastructure and Workforce development
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