Production of industrial technician manpower in Thailand: problems and solutions

Abstract

The purposes of this dissertation are, firstly, to study problems of the industrial technician production in Thailand and secondly, to analyze methods used to solve those problems.

Based on the results of the study, the only role and responsibility of the Office of the Vocational Education Commission is to increase the quantity of the industrial technician production without paying attention to labour market demand. There has been very little cooperation among relevant public sectors, each of which usually works on its own, especially in the case of the cooperation among the Office of the Vocational Education Commission, the Department of Skill Development and Thailand Professional Qualification Institute (Public Organization) in determining professional standards.

Besides, the study found that there has been little cooperation between the public and private sectors in the industrial technician production in Thailand. It means that although there has been more cooperation between these two sectors in the joint commission in the industrial technician production recently and although they have just begun to plan to work together more since 2009, it has been only in policies but has not yet accomplished except for the Automotive Industry and the Automotive Parts and the Petrochemical Industry.

In terms of the industrial technician production to meet labor market demands both in quantity and quality, it was found that the removal of the ministers of the Ministry of Education and the disunity of the administrative section make the policy (both in the strategic clarity and the implementation of the policy) discontinuous and ineffective.

Furthermore, the confidence of the industrial sector in supporting the production system and developing labor skills and the integration of the production information and the demand for labor play an important role in determining workforce planning in the industrial sector to meet labor market demands systematically. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the study that the politics and the integrating work directly affect the industrial technician production in Thailand.