Varsity rectors set up panels to seek reform ideas in 6 key areas
Play
ACADEMICS, RELEVANT EXPERTS TO HEAD THESE WORKING GROUPS
UNIVERSITY RECTORS have set up six working groups to gather reform ideas in six major areas to be supplied to the National Reform Council.
The six areas are politics, power decentralisation, justice system, fight against corruption, education, and science and technology, Professor Rachata Rachatanavin, chairman of the Council of University Presidents of Thailand, said yesterday.
Rachata, who is also president of Mahidol University, said the six groups would be chaired by academics and experts in those fields.
Political reform is headed by Thammasat University rector Somkid Lertpaitoon, power decentralisation by Ramkhamhaeng University’s Surapol Ratchapantharak and justice system by Thammasat’s vice rector Udom Rat-ammarit.
The fight against corruption is headed by Mahidol University’s Gothom Arya, education by Srinakharinwirot University vice president Pansiri Phansuwan and science and technology by Sakkarin Phumirat, president of King Mongkut’s University’s Thon Buri campus.
The six working groups have staff ranging from 16 to 141 members.
The reform ideas collected by the panels will be presented to the NRC through the nine university rectors nominated to the reform council.
The provisional charter identifies 11 areas for reform. The NRC will propose reform ideas to the Constitution Drafting Assembly to be incorporated in the new charter.
Prawase Wasi, a social critic, said the general public should also be encouraged to take part in the reform efforts, and not just the NRC.
“If people from all sectors take part in the reform movement, the NRC will have something to rely on. This will help minimise possible mistakes,” he said.
Local administrations should be strengthened and more powers given to them in order to help tackle the problems of corruption and weak bureaucracy, he said.
The order by the National Council for Peace and Order suspending elections of local administrative organisation members, aimed at preventing possible political conflict during election campaigning, should be only temporary.
“The heart of national reform is to return power to the people so that they can have self-rule as much as possible. Local administrations should be allowed to manage local affairs,” he said after a seminar on “Local Administration and Thailand’s Reform” held at a Bangkok hotel.
Wuthisan Tanchai, deputy secretary-general of the King Prajadhipok Institute, said at the same event that power decentralisation serves as a “vehicle” to solve the problem of social inequality.
Local administrations should be retained although corrupt local administrators should be punished, he said.
NCPO spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree said the junta was aware of the dissatisfaction with the order to suspend elections of local administrators.
For now, elected local administrators completing their terms would be replaced by persons selected for their honesty and no history of irregularity. Elections of local administrators would be held in the future, he added.
