AI to help students select majors

The Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT) has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system to analyse students’ interests and show them which university majors may be a good match.

CUPT president Suchatvee Suwansawat said the AI can offer a service similar to school counsellors as it weighs several factors before recommending the most appropriate majors.

“To seek guidance from AI, students need to make a list of three or four majors they are interested in, and then take a 45-minute quiz on www.mytcas.com. The quiz will assess students based on their intelligence, personality, attitude to work and fields of interest,” he said.

After finishing the quiz, Mr Suchatvee said, students will be matched to various majors with an appropriateness score of 1-100%.

Mr Suchatvee said the AI was developed specifically to help guide students who apply for university placements through the Thai University Central Admissions System (Tcas) but perhaps feel unsure of their choices.

“For many Thai kids, parents play a major role in their decision-making about careers and study. Students need guidance while they navigate a difficult series of choices. The kindest thing is to support them, rather than taking those choices away,” he said.

Mr Suchatvee also urged Thai schools to put more emphasis on improving their student guidance services to ensure they can provide insights into careers and jobs that will suit each student’s abilities, dreams and requirements.

“Early counselling is the key to a successful college admissions process because if you already know what you want to be or do, you will automatically focus on that thing without having to take too many exams or attend too many cram classes,” he said.

But Mr Suchatvee said that with hundreds of advisees per school counsellor at present, it can be hard to provide them all with time-rich, personal guidance.

“Our AI can fill this gap. I’m not saying human counsellors will be replaced by AI, because the ability to empathise with students will always differentiate human teachers from machines. But both AI and human counsellors can work together,” he said.

According to the CUPT, over 5,000 academic programmes will be offered to Tcas applicants next year.