College leaders learn from Singapore

Chiang Mai - Over this two-year period (20092010), a total of 80 vocational college executives would complete a nineday leadership training program at Singapore's Institute of Technical Education (ITE).

The move, being the first phrase of the fiveyear OvecITE collaboration, ushered the grouping of 414 smaller colleges under the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (Ovec) into 19 bigger "institutes", as according to the ministerial regulation draft approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday.

The training to help these leaders effectively lead and manage the upcoming transformation was funded by a nonprofit philanthropic Temasek Foundation at Bt15.86 million, Ovec chief Chaliew Yoosimarak said.

The first batch of 21 college directors from the Institute of Vocational Education Bangkok and the Institute of Vocational Education, Northern Region 1 (IVEN1), who attended this program from May 25 to June 2, was sharing the experience with 120 other executives at the twoday workshop in Chiang Mai from November 34. Chiang Mai Vocational College director Chatchai Ruangmanee, presenting photos of the ITE College East's hightech facilities, said one of the Singaporean institute's unique features was the "One ITE, Three Colleges" system of governance, which he commented would be harder, though not impossible, to do in Thailand where there was a much larger number of vocational colleges each also locates far from one another. He also praised the ITE's "Handson, Mindson and Heartson" value, highlighting the creation of graduates with strong technical skills, independent thinking, and passion of what they do as well as caring for society, and the ITE's creative branding campaigns namely "Makes Things Happen (19982000)", "A Force Behind the Knowledgebased Economy (20012003)" and "Thinking Hands Create Success (20042006)". He also said that ITE continued its human resource development to be adaptive to changes including rotation of work positions and responsibilities, kept study programs uptodate and responsive to economic demands and was backed by the government that truly gave importance to the technical and vocational education.

Chompunuch Buabangsorn, director of Bangkok's Rajasitharam Technical College, concluded that the first run participations would materialize four aspects of ITE. They were; the creation of cooperation networks both from inside and outside the institutes; the vocational institutes' rebranding; the human resource development within a technical or vocational profession; and the cooperation with business establishments to produce study programs that met the labor market's demands.

For the Institute of Vocational Education Bangkok, the trainingparticipant executives agreed that they would first do the creation of cooperation networks to get everyone involved on the same page about the ITE Model application, while IVEN1 executives found the rebranding as the more urgent thing. At this event, IVEN1 thus showed off ideas for IVEN1 logos and advertising posters featuring the motto saying "conserving culture", "advancing in technology", "creating virtuous persons" and "excelling in vocational skills", which resulted from the rebranding workshop held among themselves in Chiang Mai on August 67.

Ten executives of the Institute of Vocational Education, Northeastern Region 3, and the other ten from the Institute of Vocational Education, Northeastern Region 5 (IVENE 5) would join the second run of the 9day leadership training program at ITE from November 16 to 24.

After each run of the leadership training, a twoday sharing workshop is to be organized for other vocational college executives in their jurisdictions, such as this recent workshop in Chiang Mai, thus it was expected that another 320 vocational college executives would benefit through these workshops. Those who attended the training in Singapore were also to develop an action plan that would help the Ovec's future transformation.

OVEC executive advisor Siripan Choomnoom, who also had signed the OvecITE collaboration framework MOU with ITE CEO Bruce Poh, on May 25, said that it was not clearly stated which new Thai vocational institute would carry out the ITE model fully but the vocational college directors attending the program were to learn from the success of ITE to be better prepared for the future transformation, which would possibly be gradual in phrasebasis depending on the colleges' preparedness determined by an assigned committee.

Siripan said ITE showed that administrating many colleges must have a unity in education standard, a good joint usage of resources such as expert teachers, good marketing strategies, and cooperations with private sector companies.

Asked which features of ITE the Thai policymakers would like to use in Thailand, Siripan said that Ovec would apply some good ideas from ITE with realization about our own limits and differences. For example, the ITE career consulting work could make it obligatory for secondary students to visit ITE collages and spend time to learn about study programs, what students do and what fields they could work in after graduation, she said. Thailand has already started to do openhouse and career path activities to get secondary students better informed of the educational choices. She also said that Singapore also gave much importance to the image creating and rebranding as well as proactive marketing campaigns to show that vocational education was not just a dumping ground of students whose academic results could get them nowhere else, but a place for those who had specialized skills in the fields of their interest and passion.