BANGKOK, 26 May 2015 – Former ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan was confident that Thai competitiveness in ASEAN will definitely increase by 25 per cent if language skills of Thai population have improved.
Dr.Surin said in his capacity as President of the Future Innovative Thailand Institute (FIT) that lack of foreign language skill is one of the most significant problems among Thai people to compete in the AEC to be launched at the end of this year. People in other ASEAN nations were curious to study Thai language but Thais have oppositely no incentive to learn ASEAN languages. This is a serious drawback which needs an urgent solution, Surin said.
Previously, Thailand allocated one fifth of its annual budget to educational development, the highest figure among ASEAN nations. However, such a biggest investment did not bring the country higher quality of education as expected, he said.
“As far as I am concerned, Thailand needs to have effective response to the mobility of eight types of skilled labour in the upcoming changing environment in ASEAN. More effective education is a crucial part of the response as it could prepare readiness of Thai skilled labour to compete in the ASEAN labour market,” Mr.Surin said.
He also stressed that the government should invest more in education in the areas of science and technology as they put too little emphasis on the areas. Meanwhile, improvement of education quality should be done at all levels ranging from primary, secondary to higher education.
