University admission system gets tech upgrade after last week’s crash

The system failure caused an uproar from students who feared it would hit their chances of enrolling at their favourite university. 
“We would like to apologise for the problem. We would like to assure everyone that we have already upgraded the system,” Suchatvee Suwansawat, who heads the Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT), said yesterday. 
He said the server capacity had now been increased threefold to handle up to 60,000 users at the same time. Moreover, networking and database experts have been assigned to monitor the system round the clock.
Featuring five rounds, the TCAS was introduced to replace the previous central university admission system. Students can join any of the five rounds but once they confirm their choice they cannot apply and block another seat at a higher-education institute.
In the first round applicants are selected based on portfolios and interviews. There are no scores from written exams as criteria. 
The third round is for joint admission schemes, such as that operated by the Consortium of Thai Medical Schools. 
The system failure occurred because many students submitted their applications in the third round, which was initially scheduled to receive applications between May 9 and 14. 
Following the problems, applications for the third round will now be accepted till Saturday. 
As of Tuesday, 97,535 students had submitted their applications for the TCAS third round. By Saturday, that number is expected to exceed 250,000. 
Suchatvee said that despite the recent system downtime, the CUPT had no plan to cancel the TCAS. “The TCAS will save parents’ money, too,” he said. 
According to research, the previous system cost parents an average Bt70,000 while the new system cut that burden to Bt20,000.
“The problems with the TCAS this year are technical and can be solved to some extent. But in the future, the TCAS system needs to be improved to suit the changing society,” Suchatvee added.