The country needs to ensure education responds to the needs of the labour market, the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) says.

Schools, universities and vocational colleges should develop curricula in conjunction with the private sector that will hire their graduates.

Those same companies could help in the training of students.

Federation vice chairman Nipon Surapongrukcharoen told a National Education Standards and Quality Assessment seminar yesterday that universities and vocational institutes should cooperate with the private sector to design new curricula based on competencies companies want in staff.

Curricula should be hands-on in both the classroom and the work world, he said. He added that companies in the future would base salaries not on educational background but on required "professional competencies".

Nipon said the FTI could help designing curricula at universities and vocational institutes that brought these competencies into the classroom and allowed education to better respond to labour-market needs. He cited an FTI and Suranaree University of Technology project in which fourth-year students worked as interns, exposing them to real work environments and opening the possibility of getting hired after graduation.

Former education minister Chaturon Chaisang told the seminar that education in Thailand lacked direction.

Instead of focusing on much-needed curriculum development and teacher training it was obsessed with attempts to change its structure, including privatising educational institutions.

Chaturon worried education in this country was unfairly rated by those who did not take into consideration differences in school readiness and geographical and cultural factors.

He suggested that educational authorities should look at models that did not force schools to be the same and appreciated variety and gave support to quality schooling.

Ninnete Surarat

The Nation