Bid for more effective vocational training
Ovec working with employers to boost Thais' skills
Vocational and technical education graduates are not likely to become jobless, but they do have a problem in that their skills are lower than many employers need. To improve these skills and satisfy employers is very challenging for institutions that produce vocational and technical workers.
The Office of Vocational Education Commission (Ovec) secretary-general Chaipreuk Sereerak shared with The Nation in a recent interview about vocational and technical education, the challenges they present, how to deal with such challenges and what’s next for these education programmes in Thailand.
“None of our graduates are jobless. Many of them go directly to work after graduation while others move to further higher education,” said Chaipreuk.
However, he said Thailand faced a problem of students’ low capability when compared academically to those in general education. Most of the countries around the world had encountered the same problem. Educators in some countries even called vocational and technical students “second-class” students.
Entrepreneurs and people from industry have complained about the quality of their newly recruited employees and their dissatisfaction over their capabilities at several seminars and discussion groups. They wanted teaching institutions to equip them with better working skills.
Ovec considers students to have occupational aptitude, and have been trying to combine lessons taught by teachers and by professionals working in different industries.
"We try to work together with entrepreneurs and have our students learn working skills from them. As it is difficult for entrepreneurs to find qualified employees, joint training and internship projects are needed by both sides, in which the entrepreneurs help train the students while finding, screening and recruiting the most qualified and eligible.”
To solve the problem of inadequate and old equipment and machines, he said, Ovec would also allow vocational and technical institutions under its supervision to request new equipment and basic and hi-tech machines for the 2014 fiscal year.
Ovec is not only trying to strengthen its students’ working or occupational skills to meet the demands of entrepreneurs or industries through the joint training and internship. It is also attempting to boost its students by giving them different capabilities so they will be accepted locally and even internationally, and to lure more students to receive vocational and technical educations, Chaipreuk said.
“Countries around the world are now focusing on competency-based and technology-based approaches in which they want vocational and technical students to be able to create their own inventions, and we are going that way, too.”
“For the cream of the crop, scholarships have been given for them to study at five science-based vocational and technical institutions where students practise vocational and technical skills and study science subjects (physics, chemistry and biology). We aim for this group of students to become inventors. The first two batches have already graduated, some pursuing higher educational levels abroad after graduation,” said Chaipreuk.
Also, Ovec would be offering special classes with international programmes at high-performing institutions. Potential institutions were applying to Ovec to offer these classes, and there are now about 50 outstanding institutions across the country. A panel would be set up to study best practices from Singapore, South Korea, Germany and France before opening them.
This year, 32 English programmes and mini-English programme classes have been offered at Ovec’s institutions in 28 provinces nationwide. “We aim at providing more classes of both programmes in all 77 provinces,” Chaipreuk added.
To produce bachelor’s degree graduates with practical skills in response to students’ and parents’ demands, 19 vocational institutes will start providing these degrees for students. Ovec’s institutions in the same provinces will share their teaching staff and resources to run the institutes with help from entrepreneurs in terms of students’ skill training. The first 28 bachelor’s degree programmes for electricity, electronics, mechanics and so on will open next year. Also, four agricultural vocational institutes in four regions will start teaching bachelor’s degree students about agriculture.
“We will help our students to communicate in English in their professional and everyday lives and use ICT to support their professions,” he added.
“Meanwhile, a decrease in the number of students is still a major challenge. Therefore, Ovec is reaching out to more students in remote areas. As many as 542 districts have no vocational or technical institutions. Ovec will establish the institutions in many. We will give educational opportunities to more disabled people as well. Now, there are about 2,200 such disabled students,” he said, adding that Ovec would provide necessary tools to students to prevent dropouts as many left due to the high cost of tools. Fifteen per cent of Ovec’s students drop out.
Ovec will be reaching out to working people via distance learning. Starting from next year, they will be allowed to transfer their working experience to credits and study other subjects from Ovec’s radio network and website.
With all these attempts, despite the challenges, Chaipreuk hopes that Thailand’s vocational and technical education will be accepted internationally, and that it could extend more opportunities for more people to equip themselves with practical or working skills.
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