Thailand targets skills gap: `We can't even invent a motorbike'

Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin sits in his office in this July, 2015 file photo.

Thailand’s Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin poses a rhetorical question as he ponders the task of making innovation a bigger engine of economic growth: Would people prefer an electric car developed in the Southeast Asian nation, or one made by Tesla Inc?

“Are you dreaming?” Mr Teerakiat said in an interview. “We can’t even invent a motorbike.”

(Editor’s note: The full version of this article will appear in the business section of Thursday’s Bangkok Post.)

Mr Teerakiat, who said he’s Thailand’s 20th education minister in 17 years, is trying to close the skills gap in a country struggling to match some of the education gains made by Southeast Asian neighbours. His strategy includes giving more autonomy to schools, universities and teachers to boost standards. He also advises retaining a focus on traditionally strong sectors such as food, healthcare and tourism.

Thailand’s challenge is a major one: the latest triennial Programme for International Student Assessment results ranked it 54 out of 70 countries, even though education received about a fifth of the 2.73 trillion baht ($81 billion) annual budget, one of the largest expenditure items. Singapore was the top performer in the PISA assessment, with Japan second, Taiwan fourth, China sixth, and Vietnam eighth.

“We have a big gap in this country,” said Mr Teerakiat, referring to the assessment rankings, which showed Thai student scores for maths, sciences and reading falling sharply since the 2012 survey to well below the international average.

“Whatever we have done, hasn’t worked," he said of past improvement efforts.

Since seizing power three years ago, Thailand’s military government has put the spotlight on promoting innovation and advanced industries to help lift the economy from the middle-income trap under a plan called Thailand 4.0.

One area of focus is industrial development along the eastern seaboard, including a 619 million baht plan to bolster vocational training. Thailand realises it needs to upgrade workforce skills to support the 1.5 trillion baht Eastern Economic Corridor project, Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana told Bloomberg last month.

Yet with the working age population expected to shrink by about 11% as a share of the total population by 2040, “the education and skills challenge takes on an special importance and urgency”, said Ulrich Zachau, the World Bank’s Southeast Asia Country Director in Bangkok.

“On the one hand, Thailand is rapidly aging, and, on the other hand, the need for skilled workers is rapidly increasing in an ever more integrated world with ever faster technological advances," he said.

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High levels of digitisation and internet penetration make Thailand an attractive destination for IT companies to pilot new products, said Anip Sharma, a senior vice-president with responsibility for Southeast Asia at global education sector consultancy Parthenon-EY.

“But it’s not a great place to develop a product,” said Sharma. One of the biggest problems, he says, is a lack of English language penetration, a key skill when it comes to bringing about transformation in the digital age.

(Editor’s note: The full version of this article will appear in the business section of Thursday’s Bangkok Post.)