University council leaders have called on their colleagues across the country to cooperate with a new organisation that will be tasked with improving the efficiency of the councils, which are often dysfunctional because of inactive members and reluctance to assess the performance of university presidents and administrators.
"Presidents of some universities, who are supposed to be assessed or inspected by their university councils, select the council presidents and members. We should adjust the selection process," Professor Vichit Srisaarn, president of Suranaree University of Technology's council, told a meeting on Monday at the convention centre of the Chulabhorn Research Institute in Bangkok.
Associate Professor Anek Laothamatas, an honorary member of Thammasat University's council, said university council members could not dare to act against the very people - university presidents - who chose them to sit on the council.
Others at the meeting complained of members skipping council meetings or, even if they show up, failing to offer any useful ideas to improve universities, or rubberstamping proposals by university presidents and administrators.
"University council members have different experience on working for universities. Those with little experience don't know how to work efficiently, while the work of others with long experience can be suspect," said Chumpol Phornprapha, who chaired Monday's meeting.
Dr Pavich Tongroach, president of Kalasin Rajabhat University's council, noted that not many university councils could raise a quorum of at least 80 per cent of their members at meetings, despite Office of the Public Sector Development Commission regulations.
The purpose of Monday's gathering was to seek the support of hundreds of representatives from university councils and rectors across the country to form an association of university council members that will pay a crucial role in dealing with these longexisting problems.
Pavich said the new Association of Governing Boards of Higher Education Institutes of Thailand would present university council members with a code of good practices and encourage them to adopt it. "This is a good way to indirectly force university councils with poor performance to change how they work," he said.
Chumpol said he would try to register the association officially before the end of the month. He said it would provide goodgovernance training to university council members and encourage them improve how the councils function.
"Many university council presidents are overworked, as they have too many councils under their control. A council president can work for four or five universities. It has resulted in poor work," Chumpol said, adding that the association would try to find more qualified council presidents to ease the burden and to raise work quality.
The association will also seek effective ways to assess university councils and encourage them to get their universities to reach out more to their communities to benefit local people.