Four universities opting out of gat, pat scores

They are Mahidol University, Suranaree University of Technology, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok and King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.

GAT and PAT were just introduced in Thailand mainly for central-university admission's purpose.

Currently, only 12 universities have expressed an intention to count GAT and PAT scores as their direct-admission criteria next year. Six others have not yet made a decision and another says it will recognise just GAT.

The representatives from 21 higher-educational institutes yesterday met at a forum to discuss university-admission system.

Since the new-style central university-admission system was introduced three years ago, universities have chosen to allocate more seats to direct-admission system.

 Deputy Education Minister Chaiwuti Bannawat yesterday urged universities to keep the number of seats for direct-admission system as fewest as possible.

"If they need to directly recruit students, they should use GAT/PAT scores but this will ease students' burden," Chaiwuti said. "If every institute holds a separate test, students will have to sit so many exams".