Ministry boosts efforts to lure top international universities

The Education Ministry is promoting its campaign to encourage high-quality international universities to come and offer study programmes in Thailand, permanent secretary for education Chaipreuk Sereerak has said.

The ministry has begun the process of translating an order by the chief of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) that allows reputable universities to offer study programmes in Thailand into five languages, he said.

According to NCPO Order No.29/2560 (2017), issued on May 26, interested international universities are now allowed to operate in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and other Special Economic Zones.

However, the universities must operate their programmes jointly with state universities and the courses should be in line with educational development in those areas.

At present, a foreign educational institution can operate in Thailand only if Thai partners hold at least a 51% share. The NCPO chief’s announcement allows foreign universities to own a greater share, but they must be located in the designated areas.

Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin has asked for the NCPO order to be translated into English, German, Chinese, Japanese and Korean so that it can be used in the ongoing campaign to attract international educational institutions to come to Thailand, said Mr Chaipreuk.

An English version of the order is already available, while the other four versions are currently in production, he said.

In a separate development, Wanit Uamsri, deputy secretary-general of the Office of Vocational Education Commission (Ovec), said the Private Vocational Education Centre has proposed regulatory changes that will allow foreign educational institutions to offer courses in Thailand.

Meanwhile, the ministry itself has already amended some of its announcements and regulations to facilitate these international study programmes at the vocational and higher vocational certificate levels.

Allowing international educational institutions to offer study programmes in Thailand offers an opportunity to improve the quality of Thailand’s vocational education and raise its standards to the international level, he said.

Interested institutions will be required to provide accreditation to prove their quality and their proposed study programmes will have to fall in line with the NCPO order, said Mr Wanit.

Each study programme will be first inspected by Ovec and then finally approved by the ministry, he said.

So far, he said, at least one study programme has been submitted to Ovec for inspection.