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Education - matching skills to real needs
Bangkok Post 1st May 2006
System failing the working world NINA SUEBSUKCHAROEN
A broad perspective of Thailand's development clearly shows that there is a mismatch between what businesses are looking for and what the local educational system is producing, according to Anthony Ainsworth, the head of RGC Executive Search.
He believes three very simple skill sets are not being developed within the Thai educational system: conceptualisation, analytical skills and the ability to take initiative.
"Now obviously the last one runs into some cultural issues, but it is becoming more and more imperative that people can take initiative without having to be supervised," he said.
What is happening, Mr Ainsworth says, is that companies are paying a premium for people with these skills when they should be the norm. "I just think that the educational system here sort of has its head in the sand, with a '50s platform, and while businesses have moved, the education is not there to meet what the market needs."
His company sees the result in terms of the difficulty its corporate clients have finding talent. "What businesses need here is not much different than what they need in Europe, Singapore and Hong Kong. Everyone is after the same basic skill sets." Economic planning driven by political expediency rather than medium- to long-term development goals is part of the problem. Malaysia, by contrast, has just announced that infrastructure projects will now take second place to educational development.
Mr Ainsworth drew attention to the Philippines as a good example of how things can go wrong. In the 1960s it was one of the leading countries in the region, not least because of widespread English usage that made it attractive to international businesses. But today, due to decades of political mismanagement, people don't give it a second thought. Not only would Thailand end up being a second Philippines if it does not improve its educational system, it would also face greater competition from countries such as Vietnam where the work ethic and desire to teach and learn English are stronger, he says.
Mr Ainsworth and numerous others point to the need to change the very foundation of the educational system, moving away from rote learning and narrow-mindedness. The way Thai students are moulded means it is very difficult to break out later in life. Even going overseas for two years does not really lead to development because the local system is so ingrained. "These are the sort of things that are becoming a real issue for Thai business," says Mr Ainsworth. "I mean, who is developing the talent? Primarily Western international companies. I'm not saying there aren't some good Thai companies out there but in terms of career development opportunities, international companies will always draw some of the best Thai talent."
In an age of globalisation, he says, few countries can function very well as units on their own because everything today is linked. "And you see the talent coming out of the universities in India and China - huge numbers of engineers, computer science engineers, mechanical engineers."
Thailand has to consider where it will fit in this process because in the past it has done very well because its neighbours were bogged down by serious problems. "So it was easy. Nobody wanted to touch Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. Malaysia had some image issues as did Indonesia, so by default where do we go? Oh, there was only one place - Thailand."
Mr Ainsworth says he's not trying to be negative but adds that there are no prizes for being mid-table in any competition, and he does not get the sense that Thailand wants to be among the top three. "You can't say Thailand is a dynamic work centre."
What the country needs is a leader with vision who will point out what Thailand needs to be in 20 years' time. Despite being hampered by stop-start politics the country does not lack funding but needs a structure to implement the required changes.
While you can put computers in schools, you also have to teach the reasoning and logic of how computers work. "As you know, here so much of life is driven by emotion whereas computers work on logic, they don't work on emotion - a great contradiction."
Even introducing modern courses at the master's level or foreign-assisted graduate studies have only yielded watered-down results because the process is not continuous, says Mr Ainsworth.
"So people suddenly realise when they go overseas that they have to take a lot more responsibility for their lives. The educational system means deadlines and everything else, whereas here it's too easy to be in the group and work through it. That's why, when it comes to getting into the workplace, taking initiative is sort of frightening, yet not necessarily required in a lot of organisations. But for an organisation to move forward, workers have to."
A student who has gone through the Thai educational mill will find that it is an extremely tough challenge to improve himself or herself, since so much pigeon-holing has been done based on background and where one went to school. "But they need to start by saying, 'I am going to be different from the mould, I am going to challenge some things, I am going to break out a little bit. It doesn't have to be in a totally radical way but it means I am going to stand up.'
"Sometimes standing up means you are criticised, it doesn't mean that you are wrong.' He believes ambitious young people should grab the opportunity to work for small to medium companies that are internationally managed and have a mixture of Thai and international work platforms and management structure. Here people can actually shine and move up the ladder a lot quicker. "But it needs a lot of courage and I think there have been a lot of graveyards created by people trying to do it." |
