College courses to tackle skilled-worker shortage
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THAILAND is facing a shortfall of 400,000 skilled workers each year, mainly in management, information and communications technology and hospitality, according to Virachai Techavijit, honorary adviser to the National Legislative Assembly's committee on e
He also said the proficiency of Thai labourers should be improved so that there could be demand for them from overseas employers, especially when the Asean Economic Community |was fully implemented at the end of the year.
To help produce more skilled labourers and strengthen the country’s competitiveness, RIC is working with the United Kingdom’s Business Technology Education Council and its owners, Pearson, the world’s largest professional education body, to offer more international curricula in Thailand.
RIC is the first BTEC higher education college in Bangkok.
It is offering programmes in the following areas – business management, hospitality and tourism, ICT for business and accounting.
“We hope the model will help relieve the problem of skilled-labour shortage,” Virachai said. “Thailand has an urgent need to develop human capital to support digital economies and the Asian markets.
“Our approach will also be a solution for modern businesses and industries who complain about new staff arriving without professional skills.”
The school’s curriculum is in English and consist of levels one to three for up to three years of high school studies based on a student’s maturity and English proficiency and the diploma level four and five.
The diploma includes a further year of studying abroad for a bachelor’s degree at a UK university chosen by the student. Tuition fees for levels three to five start from Bt255,000 per year.
Nitin Dutta, chief executive officer of RIC, said the school had targeted 100 students in 2016 and 1,000 students by 2021.
The target group is international students in Thailand and other AEC countries and bilingual schools.
Virachai said BTEC advised the government before it announced the need to lift professional education to an international standard, with pilot projects earmarked to start in Phuket in hospitality and hotel management.
