Thailand's shift to more sophisticated industries and services is leaving a yawning skills gap in its wake. Not that there is a shortage of students eager to become engineers. But there aren't enough teachers and programs to meet student needs. The number of people becoming professors is down largely because the incentives are elsewhere. Among those that stay, lecturers commonly do extra-curricular teaching to supplement their income.
Critics blame the government's poor management of the education system.
Both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of University Affairs are riven with red tape, they say. The Democrat Party had proposed assigning senior MPs to run the ministries, with the aim of better gearing educational policies to the economy's needs. But that proposal now rests on the Democrats regaining power in the July elections, or a new administration taking it up. One way to provide quality education would be to involve the private sector. The middle class is expanding and people are willing to pay tuition fees.