Having been an educator since 1958, P Martin Komolmas, 73, president emeritus of Thailand's Assumption University, is among the most qualified to reflect on the development of higher learning in this country over the past half century.

A member of the Brothers of Saint Gabriel, a Catholic order that came to Thailand in 1901, P Martin - better known among his former students as Brother Martin - started his teaching profession at Assumption Sri Racha School in Chon Buri province when he was only 25.

In the late 1950s, public and private education in Thailand were still in their early stages and any thought of electronic learning was completely outlandish.

"[In those days], the realm of knowledge was quite limited [as everything was physical], while the way we taught students or imparted our knowledge was also very time-consuming. I remember that we all used the traditional or real blackboards in class. It took a lot of time just to write down the key concepts or key words of a single chapter on the blackboard for the students to follow," he recalls.

"Then came the use of transparencies and projectors in front of the class many years ago. Today, all has changed again. Now many teachers use PowerPoint in their presentations, while students have their own computers on the desk to follow what the teachers or lecturers are guiding them on. In a biotech class, for instance, students can easily log on to the Internet and go to Google to search for additional resources worldwide to help them visualise the subject

matter and increase their comprehension.

"In other words, the technology and new facilities for learning have drastically changed the way we educate people as well as the way students get their knowledge. To me, it's a real revolution in the world of education - something that couldn't be conjured up back then," says the veteran educator, who this week gave a keynote speech titled "e-Learning as a Science and a Profession" at the third international conference on "e-Learning for the Knowledge-based Society" in Bangkok.

Brother Martin, who over nearly five decades has taught at and managed a total of five private schools in Thailand under the supervision of the Brothers of Saint Gabriel, had his first teaching stint at Assumption Sri Racha in 1958. He later moved on to teach at Saint Louis School, Assumption College Thonburi and St Gabriel's.

His last assignment was Assumption University, or Abac, where he was president for 26 years. As the longest-serving top administrator to date, Brother Martin says one of the most important factors that contributed to the university's advancement was the flexibility of its top management in being able to learn from students.

"In 1975, we were the first business administration college in Thailand to introduce what's called the 'Dummy Company' programme for students to experiment concepts and theories learned in class in the real world of business. This initiative came from our own students, who complained that there were no real tests to see if what they learned would actually work in the outside world. They suggested there should be something - like laboratory experiments in science classes.

"We were sceptical initially but eventually adopted the idea to give students the chance to do real business after a certain number of classes. In those days, most teachers were still like big bosses in classrooms, but we thought we should also listen to the students when they had good ideas. There should be two-way communication and interaction.

"Another example is that our alumni have regularly helped update the business curriculum and textbooks, since most former students and graduates work in the real business world. Many of these people regularly pass their feedback to us. Today, we have about 25,000 alumni in virtually all sectors of Thai business and industry," Brother Martin says.

Brother Martin, who earned his Master's degree and PhD from Stanford University and the Southeast Asia Institute for Interdisciplinary Development in the Philippines, finds that the rapid pace of globalisation has also made the teacher's role more difficult.

"In my opinion, there are both positive and negative globalisation forces affecting the new generation. For example, information and communications technology has allowed students to have new knowledge at their fingertips. But the same technology has also led to the increasingly widespread addiction to violent computer games among youth, or to Internet gambling on the recent World Cup soccer matches.

"In terms of education, both teachers and students have been facing many new challenges. Teachers have found it is more difficult to impart knowledge or to guide students' moral character because the students today are harder to convince than those of preceding generations," Brother Martin says.

"Still, the basic goals of education remain unchanged: it's supposed to be for the true, the good and the beautiful."

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com