태국 고등교육의 역사와 발전 과제

Abstract

Ancient Thai Education was primarily conducted in the Buddhist temples and it was not until the seventeenth century when the first Western-style school was built in Thailand. The modern higher education, which used to be available only to the elite of the society or to governmental officials for training purposes, has become more open to the general population and, as a result, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of beneficiaries of modern higher education. Currently, the total number of higher education institutions that are registered with the Higher Education Commission at the Thai Ministry of Education amounts to 170, and more than 2 million students are enrolled in higher education institutions as of 2011. During the wave of industrialization from the end of the 1970s through the 1980s, the Thai government focused on the quantitative expansion of its higher education. However, the focus shifted to fostering qualitative growth in higher education and producing graduates with a better quality of education after the government underwent an economic crisis at the end of the 1990s which made it become keenly aware of the need for qualitative improvement in its education system. "The second 15-Year Long Range Plan on Higher Education (2008-2022)” reflects the Thai government’s efforts to adjust Thai higher education to domestic and international circumstantial changes, and satisfy its need for globalization and provide Thai students with better quality higher education. However, some critics of the Thai government’s plan for higher education fear that autonomization of universities can result in the commercialization of universities and the ill-prepared but profitable degree programs created by some universities which can produce subpar graduates, creating a major obstacle against qualitative growth of Thai higher education in the future. Therefore, in order to have qualitative growth in higher education that leads the nation’s political, economic, societal and cultural development, it appears that it is necessary for the Thai government to arrange a more comprehensive and fundamental measure for those issues.