Ministry vows to cut back on study jaunts
The Education Ministry has asked its officials to suspend overseas study trips for one year and to do away with costly training programmes and seminars to keep in line with its more prudent budget spending approach.
Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan said a panel will study how the ministry’s budget earmarked for training programmes, seminars and overseas study trips could be managed more effectively.
The panel will wrap up its study before year’s end and the findings will be used to set out the budget plan for the next fiscal year which starts in October 2020, he said.
Mr Nataphol said yesterday that he has asked for cooperation from ministry officials to stop going on statesponsored tours abroad for a year and not to organise expensive training programmes or mass events.
Where possible, the seminars and training sessions should be arranged with the help of information technology such as video calls, which can help save on costs.
The minister also told officials at the ministry to tackle an overlapping budget approved for similar investments in technological know-how.
The databases kept by various working units should be harmonised and freed up so that the central administration at the ministry can take over the management and tackle overlap, he said.
Mr Nataphol stressed the departments under the ministry must work as a team while the ministry mulls reassigning staff attached to different units who undertake similar jobs such as those in the public relations, technology and legal divisions.
However, the minister said that reassignments would not cause disruptions, adding that management were recently briefed about the ministry’s policies during a recent meeting.
Mr Nataphol said he has no intention of curbing the employment privileges or authority of anyone or any unit. The goal he has set out for the ministry is for the officials to work in unison.
He added that it was important to move all of the ministry in the same direction. However, that will not be possible without various departments having access to the same information. The ministry has been allocated a budget of 490 billion baht this year.