Colleges opt to keep uniforms

The Office of the Vocational Education Commission (Ovec) and the Federation of Private Technological and Vocational Colleges of Thailand yesterday voted unanimously to let vocational students continue to wear college uniforms as before.

The decision came after Education Minister Adm Narong Pipatanasai last week proposed that having students wear casual dress instead of their uniforms would help prevent violent brawls among technical college students.

Chanvech Boonpraderm, Ovec’s deputy secretary-general, said members at yesterday’s meeting agreed that dropping college uniforms won’t help to reduce the violence as students are still able to create other symbols such as class rings to show their college pride and sense of belonging to their institutions.

However, he said Ovec has ordered all technical colleges to keep their students away from feuds and pledged to order the temporary closure of colleges that fail to control their students’ behaviour. “If the violence is repeated, we’ll shut them down permanently,’’ he said.

“We are also considering the possibility of pushing for a new law that increases the penalties for a violent crime in which former students get involved as we have found many of the problems stem from graduates and dropout students,’’ Mr Chanvech said.

Meanwhile, Chaipreuk Sereerak, Ovec’s secretary-general, said Ovec has set up six working teams to monitor technical colleges in six areas around Bangkok, to prevent their students from getting involved in college fights.

“Each team has listed students and some graduates in three groups as black, grey and white according to their behaviour and history of violence. We have sent police and teachers to meet the blacklisted students and their parents to ensure they won’t cause any trouble,’’ Mr Chaipreuk said.

Ovec has also formed a team to focus on social media among students as it heard that some rival students used social media to challenge each other to fights outside college, he said.