Deck vocational training and skills needed for people outside formal education system.
Thailand's education system will undergo a big change in coming decades, when the number of students is expected to drop significantly due to lower birth rates. Given this, the country's productivity is expected to depend largely on how the system is revised to improve knowledge and skills among nonstudents or the "non age group", an academic said.
Kissanapong Kirtikara, an adviser to King Mongkut's University of Technology and a former secretary general of the Higher Education Commission, said at a conference on "Education for the World of Work", that Thailand had 42 million workers. But most lack further education after leaving educational institutions, although they were the backbone of the country's development.
The speech, given at the 5th World Teachers' Day in Thailand at Impact, Muang Thong Thani, which ran for three days till Saturday, also highlighted the importance of training for the "nonage" group.
"Our education system has been geared towards those of learning age, better known in the education world as the 'age group'. We have ignored the 'nonage group' though they need higher expertise to support the entire economy. But after leaving schools, they never receive any training," Kissanapong said.
"Due to the lower birth rate, while the number of students in primary and junior high school levels will drop, the number of students in the senior high school level will rise. However, this too will decline in a matter of 10 years.
"The government needs to overhaul their education mission," he said. "We need to address a question, if the 'age group' number drops from 19 million now to 12 million in the next 20 years."
He urged the government to seek cooperation with the private sector to formulate a new policy to retain and "retool" people from outside the formal education system (the "nonage" group).
He also referred to statistics that show as many as 62 per cent of the country's 42 million workers finish school with a leaving certificate below Grade 9.
Kissanapong said educating the "nonage group" did not mean all would be encouraged to undertake bachelor or master's degrees, but they needed vocational training or a mechanism to equip them with more knowledge and skills.
For example, a farmer who does construction work after the harvest could be trained in engineering techniques. If the government looked forward and formulated a national policy, private institutions could design the tutorial courses.
"These would draw new input from private institutions wanting to improve the 'nonage group's productivity," he said. "This would also ensure that all will have a job."
He noted that basic education up to Grade 12 was not enough for today's workers, as they could not get jobs with just basic knowledge. Some students borrowed funds from the state to pursue higher education, but even with higher degrees, they could not find jobs.
"Teachers will need to adapt themselves to the New World. We just can't teach what's in textbooks, as new generation students are way beyond us. Students now expect more knowledge from outside the classroom, and the knowledge must show a link to their lives.
"Importantly, students could help to design courses. They won't just sit idly and consume.
"Both teachers and students' concept of learning should be geared towards 'lifelong and lifewide learning', as workers in the future will require an integration of cross knowledge and a convergence of disciplines. We have already witnessed the convergence of bioscience, agriculture, and engineering when it comes to alternative fuel, for instance," he said.
Dr Kasem Wattanachai, a Privy Councillor and former Education minister, said it was a teacher's duty to understand all students, to equip them with the best "tools" and educate them in a good environment.
Teachers should not be lured by academic positions, but the quality of education. Meanwhile, to ensure all get jobs after graduation, parents must also take part. Youths needed to be assigned to be responsible for something, or they wouldn't know how to adapt to working life.
He referred to company executive who was stunned by the laziness of a trainee from a university. The executive said he would never admit trainees from the university again.
"It's a big gap in understanding between educational institutions and employees. This must be sorted out and the university must also put this straight to students. The universities should not be alone in training the students .. one day they will enter the real world. We must start with ourselves."