The value of learning English in Thailand and its impact on Thai: perspectives from university students

English is widely regarded as an essential skill for the globalized economy by governments around the world which devote considerable resources to its teaching in formal education, though often with limited success in terms of achievement levels. Thailand is a case in point. Set against the putative benefits of acquiring proficiency in English, concerns have been raised that the spread of English has a negative impact, threatening the vitality of the first languages and cultures of its learners. Examining whether these concerns are valid in Thailand, this article reports on a study amongst Thai university students which investigated their perceptions of English alongside their first language, Thai. Results indicate that these Thai students subscribe to the notion of English as a tool for personal economic advancement but that the position of Thai as the language of national identity remains unchallenged.     

Changing manifestations of wisdom and knowledge in Thailand

Conclusion Thailand is an important regional power in south-east Asia. At present it is experiencing a time of rapid economic development that brings tension into the traditional storehouses of knowledge. Local Thai knowledge and wisdom are being eclipsed by newer knowledge coming into Thailand from the outside. Thailand, however, has a long and proud tradition of adaptation and some Thais believe that this trait of adaptation describes the essence of Thailand. The task is well summed up by the Office of the National Education Commission (1991, p. 17) which says, ‘[The new graduate] must think out how to produce a well-balanced combination of modern knowledge and local wisdom for future economic and social development’. Traditional knowledge is being blended with newer knowledge to form wisdom that is distinctly Thai and enables Thailand to join the global community as a well-informed regional power. A doctoral candidate in sociology at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia. In her research, she encourages universities to reassert the importance of local knowledge, and to incorporate new ways of thinking into their institutions that balance the influences of global commerce with the needs of local people. She defines this imperative as the search for wisdom in higher education. I would like to acknowledge Dr. Arphorn Chuaprapaisilp, the Hongladarom family, Wipawan Kulsamrit, Helen Printer, Dr. Constance Lever-Tracy, Associate Professor Puangkaew Poonyakanok, the Suttisan family, Dr. Amnuay Tapingkae, Drs. Pairoj and Peansiri Vongivipanond and friends at Suan Mokkh for sharing their ideas with me and for their encouragement and support for my research.     

Quality and Qualms in the Marking of University Assignments by Sessional Staff: An Exploratory Study

The higher education sector is increasingly reliant upon casual (‘sessional’) staff for teaching and marking purposes. While this practice has been little examined in the past, over the last few years increasing attention has been paid to the quality of marking, mainly because students and academic staff alike are becoming increasingly likely to question examples of poor practice. Hence, many universities in Australia are now attempting to introduce stricter procedures relating to marking. Despite current concerns, there is little published research on marking practices in Australian universities. This paper adds to the body of knowledge by reporting on two pieces of empirical research into the use of casual markers. A project at Charles Sturt University comprised focus groups of, respectively, students, lecturers and markers, and a survey of distance education students. Research at the University of South Australia focused on pedagogical issues relating to marking, comparing the approaches of permanent lecturing staff with those of sessional markers. The results of these projects provide a useful insight into areas of current concern to university staff and management.     

Administrating transnational education: a cross‐cultural application of Hodgkinson’s values paradigm

This article reports on an exploratory study which employed Hodgkinson’s values paradigm as an analytical tool for explaining how administrators of transnational education programmes understand national cultural values to affect their work and working environment. In particular, interviews with managers responsible for Australia’s provision of transnational higher education in Thailand were examined against Hodgkinson’s values paradigm in an attempt to identify whether any of his particular value types might appear more prominently in decision‐making undertaken in either the Australian or the Thai educational administrative setting. The findings suggest that rational consequential decision‐making might be more significant in Australia, while decision‐making using rational consensual, transrational and subrational values might be more prominent in Thailand.     

曼谷唐人街的空间生产与族群文化交流

历史上华人很早就移居泰国。泰国华人现已占泰国人口的十分之一以上。在泰国,唐人街是华人与泰人进行文化与经济交流的社会空间,销售中国物品、族际通婚等是其族群文化交流的重要形式,而公庙的建设则系华人社区公共空间生产的重要方式。由于文化根基的不同,唐人街华人与泰人社区不会因为交融的深入而消弭,空间的生产也不会停止,但新的生活方式与文化成果必然会随空间生产而璀璨绽放。     

The influence of self-concept, parenting style and individualism–collectivism on career maturity in Australia and Thailand

Relationships between career maturity and self-concept, parenting style and individualism–collectivism across Australian and Thai cultural contexts were investigated. Berry’s (1969) etic-emic model for adapting instruments for cross-cultural research was applied. Derived etic status was achieved for the career planning scale, five self-concept sub-scales and the Parental Bonding Instrument. Mean score comparisons revealed few significant differences between Australia and Thailand. None of the independent variables were associated with Thai career planning. Academic and social self-concept scales and father care were related to career planning in Australia. Implications are discussed.     

The Buddhist approach to education: an alternative approach for sustainable education

This article is based on research undertaken as part of a study of sustainable school design in Thailand. Since school design solutions are inevitably affected by educational theory and practice, in the search for appropriate building solutions, it has been necessary to review Thai educational theories and practices that relate to the sustainability approach. Recently, there have been several attempts at the international level to respond to sustainability concepts and practices in both educational and architectural fields. These have included changes to the physical building through the introduction of techniques like passive solar cooling, and curriculum changes such as the use of native plants in the school grounds for science teaching. In Thailand, sustainable practices in both fields appear to be in their infancy. This article aims to explore one current Thai educational practice that presents the possibility of responding to sustainability concepts via culturally sensitive education. The practice is based on the three Buddhist principles of learning: sila sikkha (moral conduct); samadhi sikka (mind training); and panna sikkha (wisdom development). In this holistic approach, the principles are practised simultaneously and can be applied to many dimensions, including personal, family, school and communal levels, to cultivate responsive sustainable living practices for the learners. Because the majority of Thai people are Buddhists, this approach may be an alternative way of developing sustainable education in Thailand. It also presents a way to apply local knowledge to promote sustainable ways of living in particular contexts. This may be the first step in the development of sustainable school design in Thailand and could become an integrated part of the country's sustainable systems.     

An appraisal of an online tutorial system for the teaching and learning of engineering physics in conjunction with contextual physics and mathematics,and relevant mathematics

The number of students entering engineering schools in Australian universities has increased tremendously over the last few years because of the Australian Federal Government's policy of increasing the participation rates of Higher School Certificate students and students from low social economic status backgrounds in the tertiary sector. They now come with a diverse background of skills, motivations and prior knowledge. It is imperative that new methods of teaching and learning be developed. This paper describes an online tutorial system used in conjunction with contextual physics and mathematics, and the revision of the relevant mathematical knowledge at the appropriate time before a new topic is introduced in the teaching and learning of engineering physics. Taken as a whole, this study shows that students not only improved their final examination results but there was also an increase in the retention rate of first-year engineering students which has financial implications for the university.     

Translating Training in the NYU Caregiver Intervention in Australia: Maintaining Fidelity and Meeting Graduate Standards in an Online Continuing Professional Education Setting

The aim of this study was to develop an Internet-based self-directed training program for Australian healthcare workers to facilitate learning and competence in delivery of a proven intervention for caregivers of people with dementia: The New York University Caregiver Intervention (NYUCI). The NYUCI is a nonpharmacological, multicomponent intervention for spousal caregivers. It is aimed at maintaining well-being by increasing social support and decreasing family discord, thereby delaying or avoiding nursing home placement of the person with dementia. Training in the NYUCI in the United States has, until now, been conducted in person to trainee practitioners. The Internet-based intervention was developed simultaneously for trainees in the U.S. and Australia. In Australia, due to population geography, community healthcare workers, who provide support to older adult caregivers of people with dementia, live and work in many regional and rural areas. Therefore, it was especially important to have online training available to make it possible to realize the health and economic benefits of using an existing evidence-based intervention. This study aimed to transfer knowledge of training in, and delivery of, the NYUCI for an Australian context and consumers. This article details the considerations given to contextual differences and to learners’ skillset differences in translating the NYUCI for Australia.     

Globalisation,transnational academic mobility and the Chinese knowledge diaspora: an Australian case study

The master discourses of economic globalisation and the knowledge economy each cite knowledge diasporas as vital ‘trans-national human capital’. Based on a case study of a major Australian university, this article examines the potential to deploy China's large and highly-skilled diaspora in the service of Chinese and Australian scientific and technological development. It finds that at a time when much of the world is deeply mired in a global financial crisis, this treasured resource of highly-skilled intellectuals assumes even greater significance. Meanwhile, there are key challenges to be confronted to fully utilise China's overseas talent. It argues that the Chinese knowledge diaspora are a modern kind of cosmopolitan literati, and could contribute actively to higher education internationalisation in both Australia and China.     

Research ethics in open and distance education: Context,principles and issues

Since the early 1980s there has been increasing debate about research ethics and a gradual increase in the institutionalisation of ethics approval and monitoring. Initially this occurred in areas of biomedical research, but more recently all areas of research which involve human beings as sources of data have been included. Australia, along with other nations, has been intimately involved in these developments and now has a firmly established structure of Institutional Ethics Committees (IECS) topped by the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) for the approval and monitoring of human research ethics. Although there are guidelines and codes of practice, many issues remain still to be resolved as the panoply of research methods and practices is extended and encountered. Australian research in open and distance education is being caught in the embrace of IECs and their guidelines, and the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia is preparing its own code of research ethics. This article outlines the context and discusses the major ethical issues and implications for research in open and distance education. It considers issues of both principle and practice, and points to some of the special circumstances which researchers in open and distance education face.     

Shaping a culture: oral histories of academic development in Australian universities

Academic development has had an approximately forty‐year history within Australian higher education, paralleling the major expansions and changes in the sector, both nationally and internationally. Its principal concerns have been the improvement of teaching and the professional development of the academics who teach. The history of academic development has gone largely undocumented and unexamined at a national level, in Australia and elsewhere. However, as university teaching has increasingly become important in relation to quality in higher education, academic development has become a central player in the work of universities. It becomes of particular importance at this time to garner a more thorough understanding of the continuities as well as the discontinuities in the meanings and practices of university teaching and in the work of those whose role has been to support its development. This article presents a discussion of two key themes identified from a set of oral history interviews conducted with early leaders in academic development in Australia. These themes offer different insights into issues and understandings of academic development in today’s university. The first concerns a perennial issue in academic development – the struggle to define academic development’s emerging ethos in relation to research and service to the broader university’s endeavour. The second theme represents an issue that has been forgotten or marginalised in the official accounts of academic development but which lives on in the ‘lore’ of the field – the role of activism in the shaping of university teaching and academic development.     

Public university governance in China and Australia: a comparative study

There are several common trends and challenges in the higher education (HE) system around the world, like expansion and diversification of HE, fiscal pressure and orientation to markets, demand for greater accountability and great quality and efficiency (e.g. The financing and management of higher education: a status report on worldwide reforms, 1998; Internationalisation of higher education and global mobility 43-58, 2014; Global policy and policy-making in education, 2014; Higher Education Policy 21:5-27, 2008). These trends and changes have reshaped university governance as well. Public universities are the main institutions to carry out HE in Australia and China. The engagement between Australia and China in HE sector has become closer and closer in recent years. To conduct better and further cooperation and collaboration between Australian and Chinese universities, it is critical to understand and acknowledge the differences in two nations’ university governance. Moreover, by conducting this comparative study of two nations, it also helps us to figure out the changes in university governance over times under the global trends and the interactions between global and local factors. This comparative study focuses on the university level and attempts to identify the differences of university governance in Australian and Chinese public universities in three dimensions, state-university relation, university internal governance and university finance. This paper sketches the university governance in Australia and China and finds that the relationship between government and university is looser in Australia than that in China and Australian universities enjoy more autonomy and power than Chinese universities; as to university internal governance, Australian universities use a more business-oriented management mechanism; funding associated with full-fee paying international students has become very important for Australian HE while Chinese government funding has been decreasing as well but funds from international students play a minimal financial role.     

Australian teacher education: inside-out,outside-in,backwards and forwards?

Abstract

Teacher Education in Australia seems to be in a dynamic and constant cycle of review and change. Policy governing teacher education has also been eminently changeable and dynamic. To some extent this stems from three year terms for governments where a short term and expedient political view is taken. There has also been ongoing centre-periphery tension between the Commonwealth government and the State governments regarding regulation and accreditation of teacher education programmes with there now being regulatory bodies at both national (Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership – AITSL) and state levels. Despite all of this, teacher education is still the butt of ongoing criticism and investigation and is now more highly regulated than ever. Since teacher education occurs within a university context, with the exception of that which is offered through some private providers or some Technical and Further Education (TAFE) providers, it is also at the whim of government funding policies impacting universities generally.     

泰国政局动荡对旅游业的影响及其对策分析

国旅游业是对泰国经济贡献最大的产业,多年来,泰国的旅游业一直保持着创汇第一的地位,旅游业的发展还带动了一系列相关产业。2008年以来,泰国国内的政局动荡给泰国旅游业带来了新的考验,泰国政府正面临如何挽救旅游业面临的新挑战。该论文在此背景基础上分析了政局动荡给泰国旅游业带来的严重影响,如旅游收入明显下降;外国游客数量下降幅度大;国内失业人数增加,阐述了泰国政府为保护旅游业所采取的措施：加大资金支持,降低旅游价格;推出新的旅游产品,整修了旅游景点;强化安全措施,增强游客信心等措施;最后提出了泰国政府应该进一步采取的对策。     

The higher education dilemma in developing countries: Thailand's two decades of reform

Many developing countries are faced with the dilemma of whether to expand their higher education systems rapidly, in the face of demand and regardless of the social and employment consequences, or whether to curtail enrolments by some means of cut off or selection at the end of secondary school. This article discusses the dilemma in the context of Thailand. It discusses a variety of higher education models in use in the Third World countries and then shows how Thailand has modified its closed-access European-style universities through expansion and diversification in the 1960s and how it has experimented with open-access institutions during the 1970s. There have undoubtedly been problems but the experiment has eased some of the social pressures and tensions and it remains to be seen if the government can control an ever expanding pool of university students. Other countries faced with a similar dilemma could well learn from the Thai experience.     

A fair slice of the pie? Problematising the dispersal of government funds to Australian universities

A common theme in higher education research is the factors that affect university funding. Studies frequently examine how universities cope with funding cuts and the changes that have stemmed from operating in a neoliberal age, a period that now sees institutions commonly functioning on a cost/benefit basis. This paper offers an original contribution by using the Australian Federal Government Department of Education and Training’s document, Finance 2015: Financial Reports of Higher Education Providers, to problematise the financial assistance individual Australian public universities received from the federal government. The paper acknowledges the factors that can account for some institutions receiving more funding than others but nonetheless highlights the substantial discrepancies concerning government financial contributions that exist between Australia’s highest and lowest funded universities. At a time when a performative culture has increasingly become part of higher education, and an institution’s research performance is calculable and rankable, it is crucial to Australia’s long-term research success that all its universities remain competitive in the race for research and government funding.     

Aspects of promotion procedures in Australian universities

This paper describes formal procedures for the promotion of academics in Australian universities within the general context of economic constraints and increasing pressures on promotion to higher categories. Government statistics show that, over the last decade, tertiary education in Australia has become more expensive to maintain. In the universities the major reason for this has been the rising cost of the academic staff establishment, a trend which has come under increasing public scrutiny. Financial restrictions have resulted in a lack of recruitment and a consequent lack of staff mobility. With annual progression within the staff categories, there is now a concentration of academics at the top of the respective salary scales and the problem is compounded by a naturally rising age factor. Promotion opportunities and a system of tenure have led to a situation in which more than half of academic staff are in the senior categories. Recent studies show that academics themselves are becoming more concerned about promotion issues.A comparison is made of formal promotion procedures before the passing of recent federal legislation on equal opportunity in employment. Although there are differences in detail, procedures for promotion to senior lecturer and reader/associate professor reveal a very high level of consensus on what constitutes rewardable academic performance. Nevertheless, promotion opportunities for academic staff are of necessity becoming more restricted, a trend which has far-reaching implications for the Australian university system.     

Student perceptions of Thai university initiations

Recently there have been several sensational reports of serious consequences of freshmen initiation rites at Thai universities. The purpose of this study was to investigate Thai freshmen students' perceptions of the faculty initiation process. For this study, roughly 1,000 freshmen students took a pre-test during the first week of their initiation and a post-test after the initiations were complete. These tests were administered at 18 universities around Thailand during the first term of the 2007 academic year. The results of the survey suggest that initiations seem to have little effect on student perceptions of themselves, the activities, and their institutions. In conclusion, the university initiation process should be reviewed so that it can better focus on helping students get accustomed to life at the university.     

泰国清迈、清莱佛教建筑文化研究

我们通过考察泰国清迈、清莱佛教建筑文化和资料分析有如下结论：建筑文化是社会文化的集中体现。建筑文化的精神特征是人类社会上层建筑领域内容和层次的表现。泰国的佛教建筑文化集中表达和包含了泰民族的精神世界与泰国的政治体制。泰国的佛教建筑文化之所以取得如此成就，是泰民族在南传佛教浸润下形成的社会意识形态作用于建筑文化模式所产生的结果。同时也反映了泰民族吸收中国、印度、欧洲文化的积极进取态度。中国传统文化与泰国佛教建筑文化有着深远的历史关联。