Consistency in education reforms stressed
AN INCOMING elected government should give priority to pushing ahead with education reforms in order to ensure the country has workers with sufficient skills, a forum has been told.
Kamalinne Pinitpuvadol, executive director of the International Institute for Trade and Development (ITD), said that a government to be formed after the scheduled national election in February should focus on continuity of national policy regarding skills development - especially in education - as a crucial factor in driving the economic development of the country.
“The reform of the education sector, which plays a significant part in people’s development, should be pursued in the same direction throughout the country.
“For this reform, we need a good brainstorming session from all stakeholders, including academics, the labour sector, civil society, and community,” he told the forum, which was entitled “The trend of human capital development strategy in Thailand: Building Thai citizen 4.0 to the |new world”. The event was hosted by ITD.
Kamalinne said that workers’ skills should be developed so that they can keep up with the changes in technologies, especially in the area of Big Data analysis and the use of computers, as well as in entrepreneurship. Their skills will increasingly rely on interpersonal communication, and the inter-dependence of community society and environment, he said.
“Thailand’s educational sector should be developed in accordance with the new industrial and business contexts, which have been changed dramatically,” he said.
“They should be also connected perfectly with the dimension of international trends and the pluralism of society,” said Kamalinne, adding that all stakeholders need to change their mindset in the development of workers’ skills to be in line with the disruptive transformation of the technology, economic and societal spheres.
He said the government and other authorities should make an in-depth analysis on the industries and jobs of the future, as far out as the next 20 years, as those industries and jobs will be impacted.
With the emergence of digital and robotic technologies, workers will be replaced by robots and automated processes in many areas of works such as in front-office services, finance and banking, and the manufacturing industry. Nhabhat Chaimongkol, assistant director of the Office of Strategy and Organisational Communication, ITD, said that to develop skills in a more sustainable way, Thailand needs to settle the problem of inequality in training as its strategy for the digital era.
“The key challenge in the development of human capital is that many people, especially marginalised persons, cannot access the educational system,” he said.
“Another challenge is the health problems that obstruct many people from achieving greater productivity. They also should be able to access the public health system effectively.”
Nhabhat said that Thailand should promote a positive identity of the Thai people in the eyes of foreigners, such as their traits of working hard, their circumspection, diligence, and honesty.
