Contributions of Thai research universities towards Thailand becoming knowledge based society

Abstract

Universities are one of the core and main pillar in building the nation towards Knowledge Based Society (KBS). However, the importance of creating a KBS, the nation higher education system needs to be at par with globally standards. The key factors that contribute in building the nation towards KBS by the higher educational institutions include Governance, Culture, Innovation, Research, Infrastructure, and Information Communication and Technology (ICT). Sharma et al, (2008) study framed four pillars of the knowledge society: Infrastructure, Governance, Human Capital and Culture. In Southeast Asia, approximately 300 million people’s lives depend on products and knowledge from the Mekong Subregion. In this region, there are more than 840 public and private universities and colleges. Among all, Thailand plays important role in Mekong Subregion in all expect of development. Thailand is positioning itself as an education hub in the Southeast Asian region as well as building the nation as a KBS. In 2009, Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC), Ministry of Education, Thailand categorized their higher education institutions in four clusters namely research university, specialized university, undergraduate-based university and community university. However, there are growing challenges for the Thai universities, which are not only internal but also contributed from external factors. Many of these challenges are not considered fully by the local public universities as they have opted to ask for additional funds from the State to keep the competitive pressure. Furthermore, the Thai education system does not sufficiently react to labor market needs, which have altered radically by rapid growth. Especially higher education institutions, face new and diverse challenges in regards to access, equity and quality. Thai educational quality has been improving but still lagged behind the international standard. Therefore, it is very significant to study the factors that influence the Thai Higher Education sector’s contribution in building nation towards KBS. The guiding research question for this study is to what extent factors such as human capital, governance, academic quality, culture, research, innovation, infrastructure, and ICT, contributes Thai higher education instituions in building nation towards KBS and its impact. The objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between the factors and their possible impacts on the KBS. In addition, the definition of the related factors, indicators and the measurement for this research are described in details and also three hypotheses are developed. Mixed method is applied for this research to support qualitative by quantitative data. The degree of the influence levels were tested by the statistical results from the questionnaires. Purposive sampling technique was used for qualitative method and convenient sampling for the quantitative method. The target populations of this study are the policy and decision makers for purposive sampling and two groups of respondents from 9 Research Universities for the convenient sampling. The finding indicates that human capital produce from Thai universities needs to have the capabilities and capacities (Competency) to find new knowledge area. This is supported by quantitative analysis which shows significant contribution for the KBS. Result suggested that the research universities needs to gear more focus on the levelling up their faculty members to be more up to date needs of the country development as well as clear understanding of university contribution towards KBS. Based on the expert’s opinion on the Contribution of Thai university’s towards KBS, the study found the degree of high and low in regards to the University Competence and University Compliance. Path analysis was conducted to identify a casual pattern of these variables. These casual relationships are explained as direct and indirect effects. The result indicates that the Contribution of University is directly affected by Human Capital, Research, Culture, Infrastructure, Academic Quality and ICT. Governance and Innovation factors are indirectly influence the Contribution of Universities towards Thailand becoming KBS. The finding from the qualitative and quantitative indicates that six factors are major contributors of university towards Thailand becoming a KBS. In this regard, this study recommended six factors are main pillar in building the country toward KBS and in addition, government policy and the involvement of corporate sector, international non-organization; local non-government organization and the local community are very important. Therefore, study recommended that policy and decision makers to involve all the stakeholders to be part of the policy development. Study also recommended that in framing the policy, primary education institutions play a very important for the country development and for the KBS.