Education reforms have been an ongoing process in Thailand as is it with its many
neighbours in Southeast Asia. Reforms in Higher Education sector have also been a key
area in development. The history of higher education in Thailand can dates back to
1889 when the country’s first medical school Siriraj Hospital was established. Since
then, over 141 universities, both Government and private and over 50 other private
higher education institutions have been established in Thailand including two open
universities. Recognising today’s rapidly changing world, Thailand has embarked on a
long term educational planning in order to meet the nation’s human resource
requirements. The Commission on Higher Education, Thailand with support from the
Ministry of Education has embarked on several initiatives that focus on technology as
the engine for enhancing outreach and quality in education.
The history of higher education
in Thailand can dates back to
1889 when the country’s first
medical school Siriraj Hospital was
established. Since then, over 141
universities, both Government and
private and over 50 other private
higher education institutions have
been established in Thailand. In 1970,
two open universities were also
opened to provide an effective and
economical way to respond to the
growing public demand for access to
higher education. Both have made use
of modern technology such as radio
and television to broadcast
tutorials to a wider audience and
the two universities presently
share around sixty percent of all
tertiary enrollments.
Thailand’s higher education has been
integrated into the national
development plans since their
inception in the early 1960s. However,
recognising today’s rapidly changing
world, Thailand has embarked on a
long term educational planning in
order to meet the nation’s human
resource requirements for future
generations. Thus, the
Ministry of University
Affairs (MUA)
formulated the nation’s
first long term plan for
higher education (1990
- 2004) and elements of
this was incorporated
into the Seventh
National Higher
Education
Development Plan
spanning the years
1992 to 1996. In order
to achieve these goals,
the plans place
emphasis on equity,
excellence, efficiency
and internationalization.
The organization
of Higher
education
 The Ministry of
Education Regulatory Act, promulgated in July 2003 has
amalgamated education related
agencies like the Ministry of
Education, the Ministry of University
Affairs and the Office of National
Education Commission. The
Commission of Higher Education is
one of the central administrative
bodies of the MoE, with a legal status
as juristic person.
The Commission of Higher Education
(CHE) is directed by the Board. The
Board has the authority to formulate
higher education development
policies and plans corresponding to
the National Economic and Social
Development Plan and the National
Education Plan.
The CHE is primarily involved in
policy recommendation. Higher
education standards, higher
education development plans, and
handle international cooperation in
higher education. Along with
devising criteria and guidelines for
resource allocation and providing
financial support for establishment of
higher education institutions, the CHE is also responsible for monitoring,
inspecting and evaluating the
outcomes of higher education
management. The CHE is also
involved in several other functions as
prescribed by the Minister of
Education or Council of Ministers.
The ICT Master Plan for
Higher Education (2002-2006)
This Master Plan, which aims at
training IT-related skills to teachers
and educational personnel in higher
education institutions, specifies two
important objectives: 1) development
of designers and users of
technologies for education will be
supported in order to promote selfstudy
as well as ability in applying
technologies to education and in
accessing information; 2) 40 percent
of personnel in higher education
institutions will be trained to use
technologies for education.
Under the IT Plans of Higher
Education Institutions, most of the
higher education institutions include
training IT-related skills for their
teachers, educational
personnel and students
in their master plans. A
number of teachers and
educational personnel
have been trained to use
ICT in developing
teaching-learning
materials while learners
have been trained to use
ICT as a tool in
accessing information
required.
Following the National
Education Act, 1999, and
with a focus on
enhancing the nation’s
competitive capabilities
by creating more
educational
opportunities to reduce
the difference between
the knowledge levels of
the population, the
Office of the Commission
on Higher Education has been developing and providing
various opportunities as follows:
- Developing the UniNet IT
infrastructure, to connect every
institution of higher education to
the Internet for education and
research.
- Supporting the production of
courseware for dissemination via
UniNet.
- Developing the Learning
Management System (LMS).
- Developing the e-library, ecommunity
and the learning
resource sharing centre.
Thailand Education and
Research Network (UniNet)
Initiated in1996 UniNet is Thailand
Education and Research Network,
(http://www.uni.net.th/en) the ICT
infrastructure connecting all
universities, institutions, and
campuses in the country, through
ATM network via 155Mbps
bandwidth fiber optics. This
infrastructure is aimed at connecting
the networks in Bangkok to the rural
provinces through digital leased lines
with 2Mbps bandwidth The primary
objective of UniNet is to provide
Internet access for Universities–network infrastructure for research
and facilitate IT campus for Distance
Learning. UniNet is aimed at
developing self-study centers with
electronic library databases, the
Internet, multimedia, video-ondemand;
these centers will connect to
the high performance network,
develop social-learning and lifelonglearning
systems by creating
multimedia courseware, and providing
knowledge databases and distance
learning systems. This is also
aimed at training teachers and
assistants to apply ICT in
educational development.
UniNet is the Education network
backbone of Thailand. Currently
this has 145 Participants
including public universities,
IT campuses, private
universities etc.
The Thailand Cyber University
 The Thailand Cyber University (TCU)
is an initiative to assist all the higher
education institutes to deliver
distance learning via the Internet. The
initiative also aims to ensure that all
online courses are of a high quality
and meet government standards and
promote the sharing of teaching
resources and human resources.
The TCU is planned to become a
knowledge and education centre,
using UniNet and the latest
technologies to provide further
education for all, for both formal and
informal education. The TCU aims at
increasing the number of people who
can access higher education, gaining
knowledge at their convenience,
irrespective of time or location. The
courses will meet the educational
standards set by an internationally
recognised quality guarantee
system. A credit exchange system is
planned to be created, that will allow
the credit gained from an online
course, to be transferred from one
institution to another
TCU being developed by the Office of
Information Technology
Administration for Educational
Development, part of the Commission
on Higher Education.
Technology in education under
the Ministry of Education
The Ministry of Education focused on
several traditional and modern
technologies to enhance the quality
and outreach of education in
Thailand. These technologies have
ranged from mass media like television
and radio via satellite to the extensive
use of computer and Internet in
schools and higher education for
teaching and learning. Some of these
initiatives are discussed here.
Mass media for education
outreach
 In cooperation with the Office of the
Basic Education Commission (OBEC),
the TOT Corporation Public Company
Limited, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and international
organisations under the aegis of the
United Nations, the DLF presently
broadcasts educational TV
programmes via satellite through
14 channels. Among these, 12
channels are devoted for the direct
teaching programmes at basic
education level. The other two
channels are the international
channel broadcast in foreign
languages and the community/tertiary
education channel.The DLF international channel
airs its international programmes in
Thai, English, French, German,
Japanese and Chinese. The
programme coverage includes arts
and culture, music, science and
technology, agriculture, environment,
health and innovation. The Ku-band
satellite pattern covers China
(Kunming), Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar and Vietnam. All these
neighbours received the Royal
Granting of distance learning
equipment from His Majesty the King.
The community and tertiary education
channel focuses on vocational and
university education.
Among the Higher Educational
Institutions, the Rajamangala Institute
of Technology (RIT) and
Sukothaithemmathitirat Open
University (SOU) produce direct
teaching programmes particularly for
their students. The RIT broadcasts
programmes via the C-band satellite
pattern while SOU broadcasts
programmes through Channel 11. In
September 2000, SOU was granted
Royal permission to conduct weekday
broadcasts via the Ku-band satellite
pattern through the community/
tertiary education channel of the
Distance Learning Foundation (DLF).
Thailand has 514 radio broadcast
stations, of which 25 of which are
designated for educational purposes.
At the level of higher education,
Chulalongkorn University, Kasetsart
University, operate radio stations.
Thammasat University and the RIT,
etc. broadcast programmes providing
general knowledge as well as
entertainment.
e-Learning services
 The Distance Learning Foundation
launched the free-of-charge contentbased
eLearning service from the
Distance Learning Television, Wang
Klaikangwon, Hua Hin District in May
2002. The eLearning web page of the
DLF “www.dlf.ac.th” allows Internet
users anywhere in the world to view
“live broadcast” all the educational programmes broadcast via the satellite
simultaneously with the actual
broadcast. Moreover, by means of
eLearning or eTraining, users
anywhere are able to participate in the
Flexible Learning Scheme via video
conferencing and the Internet.
It is worth mentioning that in carrying
out His Majesty the King’s lifelong
learning policy, concerted efforts and
support from various public and
private organisations, both within
Thailand and in foreign countries are
leading to the achievement of the DLF.
At higher education level, the
increasing popularity of eLearning was
seen in several universities. Among
these are two state universities,
Chulalongkorn University and
Kasetsart University (KU) operates
Chula Online and KULN (KU Learning
Network). The University of the Thai
Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), a
private university, has also initiated
eClassrooms.
Apart from educational institutions,
other government agencies also took
part in providing online learning. For
instance, the National Science and
Technology Development Agency
(NSTDA) in collaboration with
Thailand Graduate Institute of Science
and Technology (TGIST), has
launched “LearnOnline,” a website
that was developed to serve as a
central place for web-based courses
from well-known universities and
organizations. Other web-based
courses offered include Cyber
tools for Research, Digital Design,
Bioinformatics, Biodiversity,
Technology Management and English for Science and Technology. More
details about LearnOnline are
available at http://www.learn.in.th/.
Developing materials and other
technologies for Education
In 2002, the MOE implemented several
projects regarding the development of
materials and other technologies for
education to be used at the level of
basic education.
As for the development of software,
media and learning content, the MOE
has also initiated: 1) to procure legal
software; 2) to encourage teachers and
educational personnel to produce
software that aid the teaching-learning
process; 3) to encourage educational
institutions, learning centres and
learning sources to develop websites
so as to exchange knowledge; 4) to
establish multimedia centres; 5) to
develop a standardised database
system; and 6) to encourage, through
competition, the development of
multimedia and software that aid the
teaching-learning process.
So far, approximately 300 electronic
books and 1,500 websites have been
developed and are being used as
learning sources. Among these, educational institutions under the
sponsorship of the SchoolNet project
have developed 700 websites.
Moreover, the MOE also initiated a
competition that will be organised
annually to support the private sector
in relation to development of
multimedia and software that aid the
teaching-learning process. For each
year, 100 sets/subjects of multimedia
and software will be selected as
prototype. So far, 300 sets/subjects of
multimedia and software have been
developed and 10 multimedia centres
have been established.
As a crucial factor in the
transformation of Thai society into a
knowledge-based society, the
Ministry has embarked on an effective
utilisation of technologies for
education to improve the quality of
teaching and learning as well as make
lifelong education for all Thai people
more promising. In this regard,
continuous and concrete actions must
be taken to deal with the priority
tasks. These include development of
materials and other technologies for
education and bridging the digital
divide between Thailand and other
countries as well as between Thai
people living in urban areas and those
living in rural areas. 
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