The German Speaking Club of the Eastern Seaboard investigates Dual Vocational Training over business lunch at Royal Cliff

by Sue

The guest speakers of the month at the German Speaking Club of the Eastern Seaboard lunch were the German director of the Thai-German Institute, Walter Kretschmar and the director of Dual Vocational Training Pratharn Kidjawatana, who presented insights to this educational system.

Employers in Thailand experience a shortage of skilled labor. As the economy grows this shortage will get more serious. It threatens to affect companies’ growth and prosperity.

TGI German director Walter Kretschmar addresses the German Speaking Club of the Eastern Seaboard.

Employers are calling for more relevant vocational training. Yet, more people realize that the state system of formal vocational education cannot solve this manpower problem alone. Nor can the individual company. Effective and efficient vocational education can best be realized in a combination of in-company training and coursework at colleges.

Thai educators have for many years looked at the experience of the German vocational education system. As early as the sixties, German educators helped to establish the first trade schools, write curricula, equip workshops and train vocational teachers. In the seventies industrialization in Thailand accelerated. More factories were established, applying ever more sophisticated manufacturing methods. They needed more skilled people and they demanded higher qualification levels. A shortage of skilled labor became a restraint to economic diversification and growth.

Realizing that pre-employment training could no longer be done in schools alone, the Department of Vocational Education (DOVE) sought the cooperation of the employment sector and looked into the German experience in dual vocational education and finally invited their assistance in 1998 to launch the project with the GTZ - Deutsche Gesellshaft fur Techinische Zusammenarbeit assigned to organize support.

“Dual” refers to the fact that two partners, private companies and vocational schools, and two learning venues, factory workshop and classroom are needed to get good training results.

This form of training brings the two together to move Thai vocational education closer to the world of work by a combination of in-company training and college coursework.

The occupations covered range from automobile mechanics to secretarial staff and from jobs at hotels to that of a jeweler.

The trainees spend three or four days a week in their company and are released for one or two days a week for instruction at the Technical and Vocational College. More than 3000 companies from all regions of Thailand have formed an alliance with 200 colleges with whom they share responsibility for results.

If your company is short of skilled labor you should consider becoming a partner in the DVT joint venture. More information on this project can be obtained from the Dual Vocational Training at the Ministry of Education, P.O. Box 10, Bangkok 10304. Tel and fax: 02-2802933 + 39.

Economic counselors from BOI Overseas, namely: Tokyo, New York, Frankfurt and Paris, accompanied by 30 representatives from BOI Bangkok & Laem Chabang, recently visited Hemaraj’s Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate (Rayong) and General Motors (Thailand) plant, where they received a warm welcome from Hemaraj’s senior vice president Vivat Jiratikarnsakul.

Updated every Friday
Copyright 2001  Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand 
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]

Updated by Chinnaporn Sungwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk.
E-Mail: [email protected]