Management ran AIT into the ground

Your report highlights only one symptom of the Asian Institute of Technology’s recent poor governance and decade of mismanagement. Today AIT has no credible academic or business plan, and two presidents have managed to keep it solvent essentially only by reducing costs. In the process AIT has been seriously weakened, especially because quality staff left or were forced to leave. 

AIT’s critical academic capital and management capability was lost, so that today it is a shadow of its former self. Research of an international standard is negligible, AIT is ranked very low in academic league tables and there has been brand erosion to the point where student recruitment is impossible without further lowering entry standards. 

Against this background of decline AIT has chosen to focus on its past glory with celebratory events, halls of fame, new charters, and signing memoranda of association with low-ranked, inconsequential and even dubious organisations (including in areas of no relevance to AIT, such as Swedish fashion). There is pointless and excessive travel and the entertaining of an endless round of visiting potential “collaborators”, VIPs and diplomats. 

It is impossible to justify subsidisation by Thai taxpayers of an institution where most of the students are relatively wealthy Thai. Why not subsidise all Thai private universities? Now is the time for an independent inquiry into what has happened to AIT. Meanwhile because there is no confidence in the current president and his senior management, they should resign.

Professor John Belcher

Tokyo