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Published on September 12, 2007

Like most public debates in this country, the ongoing discussion about whether public universities should discard their outdated, civil-service style of administration in favour of greater autonomy has been clouded by ignorance and fear of the unknown. As a result, the anti-reform camp, bent on maintaining the status quo, appears to be gaining the upper hand. Many students have been recruited to join the anti-reform movement. They have been told that, once granted autonomous powers, state universities will be left to their own devices and be deprived of government subsidies. Therefore, these former state institutes will have to charge high tuition fees in order to stay afloat. Some may go the way of private, "for-profit" establishments of higher learning.

In recent months, opposition to the idea of greater autonomy for state universities has gained ground. Some students have taken to the streets to protest, blocking traffic on public thoroughfares. Some have distorted facts by portraying autonomy supporters as greedy individuals who want to transform public universities into money-making machines catering to the elite.

Many people seem to have bought this argument in the absence of public information or vociferous defence from other side. The Surayud government has been forced to suspend the autonomy plan, even though the National Legislative Assembly has already passed the relevant enabling bills. This serves to demonstrate that the government, particularly the Education Ministry, has been doing a poor job of informing the public about the real issues behind the move to free public universities from the state bureaucracy - which is already weighed down by debilitating inefficiency and corruption.

The government has promised to maintain the level of budgetary allocation to universities that opt out of the state bureaucracy - at least for the foreseeable future. The size of the subsidies may gradually be reduced as newly independent universities strike out on their own and achieve a certain level of financial self-sufficiency.

The administrators of public universities are trying hard to reassure students who cannot afford the eventual rise in tuition fees that they will be eligible for scholarships, grants, student loans and other assistance programmes. But students and parents still insist that good education must also be cheap, even if that means the use of taxpayers' money to subsidise it. This means that tax collected from poor people who will never be able to afford to send their children to a university will have to be used to subsidise university students from middle-class and wealthy families. Obviously, this is unfair.

People must be told in no uncertain terms that a rise in tuition fees at public universities - which currently charge only a fraction of the amount charged by private universities - is inevitable. They must also wake up to the fact that, as a middle-income developing country, Thailand has limited financial resources for education. The available funds must be used wisely and cost-effectively if the education system is to be able to continue to produce the competent, skilled workers necessary to keep the country competitive in the global economy.

The quality of education in this country has been deteriorating precipitously over the years. At the same time, both sides continue to wrangle over the wisdom of autonomy for public universities. The time has now come for Thailand to make a decision on whether it wants its universities to continue with an archaic, inefficient administrative system that promotes mediocrity - not academic excellence.

The real opponents of autonomy are not as visible as the students who have been manipulated to protest against it. Most of these real opponents are lecturers, faculty members and staff who are concerned about job security. This is because greater accountability will be required once a public university becomes an autonomous entity.

A shift to the new system will call for dramatic changes in administrative structure, work processes and mindset. But old habits die hard, and many are opposed to change at all cost and will do their best to undermine the plan.

The government and advocates of autonomous status for public universities must redouble their efforts to promote better understanding of the benefits that Thai society can expect to gain from the plan to reform the country's institutes of higher learning.