Should we subsidise a campus where most of the students are well-heeled?

Tej Bunnag and Said Irandoust imply that AIT will not have a future and will therefore have to close unless it benefits from further financial support from Thailand. Maybe this is not the problem they imagine it to be. If, as seems increasingly likely, AIT is unable to reinvent itself then it must consider an alternative future. This might include closure. AIT’s founder, SEATO recognised that it had accomplished its purpose and decided to end its existence. In many ways deciding “mission accomplished” is preferable to slow decline in a mist of denial and a hankering after past glory.

The reason AIT faces a crisis is not because the government of Thailand, as well as those of other countries, have not supported it, but because of some fifteen years of poor governance and poor management. During this period AIT has not produced a credible strategic plan to convince potential supporters that it might have a worthwhile future.

Tej Bunnag and Said Irandoust dwell on AIT’s past accomplishments, but a worthy past does not in itself secure a similar future. AIT’s role as described has been assumed by many of the region’s top universities, some of which are in Thailand, so that today the Institute is a relic from a different era. AIT has lost considerable academic capital and now faces a financial crisis. These two things are not unrelated. AIT’s academic rank has been declining to a point were today Thailand’s top universities outshine it. Research accomplishment is meagre, admission standards (academic and linguistic) are low and the ratio of applicants to places has very considerably narrowed – a critical measure of academic prowess. Moreover, if AIT claims exceptionalism is on its side and that it must be measured by non-Thai or extra-regional criteria, why does it not benefit from relevant international accreditation?

The question must be asked as to how AIT differs from other private Thai universities. Why should the Thai government subsidise an organisation where the majority of students at its campus in Thailand are relatively well-heeled Thai, many of whom are pursuing business studies programs? The answer cannot be found in filing cabinets full of useless memoranda of agreement and easy to make associations with all manner of international organisations, many of which themselves under-perform.

The real losers in the AIT saga are its alumni many of whom are concerned that their reputations reflect AIT’s better days will be tarnished by its demise. Maybe to them saving AIT’s past reputation by its closure or absorption by a stronger academic institution (it began life at Chulalongkorn University) is becoming an increasingly attractive proposition?

Prof John Belcher

Shinjuku-ku

Tokyo