WHILE the government says the Thailand 4.0 national development blueprint will form an integral part of ongoing national reconciliation and reform efforts that aim to reshape the country over the next 20 years, according the PM’s Office, but many sectors – notably education – do not appear to be keeping pace.

Thailand 4.0 has been detailed in multiple facets, with the education element of the policy meant to focus on digital literacy and innovation based on a new stage of scientific development.

However, most students appear to be stuck in the outdated era of 1.2, and the most common way for them to learn is through Internet searches.

Supot Hannongbua, a lecturer at the Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Science, said if the government wanted to reach the 4.0 era, it would have to integrate education into the plan by turning students into innovators.

But PM’s Office Minister Suvit Maesincee, who is in charge of implementing the strategy, told The Nation that before the Thailand 4.0 blueprint was activated the government had to put the reformist, reconciliatory and long-term development agendas into a unified vision for more practical measures that could be implemented simultaneously.

“The previous political conflict and divisiveness stemmed from social injustice and inequality in many areas, including economic inequality,” he said. “Over the past two years, the degree of this conflict and emotions have toned down.

“However, national reconciliation is not just about the two opposing political parties or an amnesty for their previous offences. There are at least 10 major issues that need to be focused on to achieve results. So Deputy Premier Prawit Wongsuwan will be holding sessions with all stakeholders, including political parties, to hear their opinions over the next three months.”

Suvit said following that process, the government planned to implement the new Thailand 4.0 blueprint.

He said it was hoped the blueprint was a “common ground” shared by the majority of Thais, as the country had to “legitimise a common ground” to work on achieving its goals over the next 20 years.

“It’s a holistic approach, as we believe the majority of Thai people want to have a good future in terms of economic well-being,” he said.

Recent polls suggested that people are somewhat satisfied with the more peaceful domestic political situation but are still unsatisfied about the economy.

Suvit said most people also wanted to see more social justice and equal opportunities for themselves and their children in terms of employment, healthcare, education and other public services.

“I think it’s a form of economic democratisation, as democracy is not just about political matters. On the economic front in this context, we hope to turn this new vision into actions that lead to the creation of new growth industries and enterprises, smart farmers, tech start-ups, etc,” he said.

“This should be a substitute for the traditional hand-outs or populist policies. In fact, if some people are too poor and lack access to certain public services, we should give them extra help.”

Suvit said if the country could achieve these development targets, national harmony would come naturally. He said initial results could be expected within the next two to three years, “if we can show the public that the efforts are transparent”.

He said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s leadership was also a crucial factor in supporting the implementation of the Thailand 4.0 vision.

“In my opinion, the Thai people, especially the poor, have excessively depended on politicians in terms of economic well-being, so we hope to help them to help themselves,” he said.

“After all, the road map for general elections for the return to democracy remains intact, but we want to start the actions now and hand over the task to the next government.”

Suvit said overall the Thailand 4.0 vision aimed to achieve a secure, wealthy and sustainable future for the country, as Thailand aspired to leapfrog from its current middle-income-country status to become a higher-income country.

He said the country needed to address social and economic inequalities and developmental imbalances, which result in environmental issues and other problems. In other words, he added, “we have a motto that no one should be left behind and the distribution of wealth should be widespread when the economic pie is bigger”.

He said the world had entered into the fourth industrial revolution in which digital, bio and other technologies had disrupted many industries. China has its “Made in China 2025” vision, while South Korea’s vision is the “Creative Korean Economy”.

“We also need to have a long-term vision to adapt to global changes. In fact, our last major national reform efforts happened during the reign of King Rama V, so we need to take this opportunity,” Suvit said.

“Due to many years of political conflict and chronic corruption, our annual economic growth rate, which has recovered to about 3 per cent per annum, remains significantly below our potential of 6-7 per cent growth.”

Dr Supot Hannongbua, who teaches at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Science, said that within the country’s higher education system, learners should be able to become innovators in the 4.0 era.

“But apparently, most students are stuck in the outdated version. Just 20 per cent of students can seek more knowledge from online media, which is in the 2.0 version only,” he said.

But he said, the 2.0 version was still an improvement on the 1.0 period when lecturers had to “spoon-feed” students with knowledge.

Supot said students generally remembered just 5 per cent of spoon-fed knowledge. If they read more, they obtain about 10 per cent of knowledge during the course of their study. If lecturers used illustrations, students might be able to remember up to 20 per cent of the content. If demonstrations were involved, students would attain about 30 per cent of the knowledge given, he said. Citing renowned educationalist Prof Dr Vicharn Panich, Supot said such a method amounted to rote learning and an “outside-in” approach.

Supot believed Thailand’s educational sector would be able to move to the 3.0 version by arranging debates/discussions, practice and “teach others” sessions.

“Debates and discussions can help students remember 50 per cent of the content, practise 70 per cent and ‘teach others’ 90 per cent,” he said.

He said if Thailand wanted to implement the 4.0 version, it would have to integrate education into communities and ensure students could help solve community problems. “In the 4.0 era, we expect students to learn beyond classrooms. We expect them to be innovators,” Supot said.

He said if students had learned how to develop solutions to problems they had seen in their daily lives, they would develop abilities to produce innovations for the business sector too. With Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha placing a strong emphasis on Thailand 4.0 goal, the University Presidents Council of Thailand (UPCT) has vowed to turn all its 27 member universities into the Thailand 4.0 higher-educational institutions.

For such a transformation, these universities would have to encourage analytical thinking and innovative minds among their students. They would be expected to create useful research and innovations.

In terms of research, Supot said there had so far been no clear definition of the Thailand 4.0 idea. “But, in my opinion, research by Thai univer-sities must have now be at the stage of Thailand 1.2 only,” he said.

According to Supot, the Thailand 1.0 research is mere research, while the Thailand 2.0 research is what makes it to academic journals. Thailand 3.0 research should be leading to patent registration, and Thailand 4.0 research should provide innovation.

“But the Thailand 4.0 research does not necessarily mean something that will raise Thailand’s competitiveness on the international stage only,” Supot said. He said research that could practically encourage locals to efficiently utilise local resources should count too.

So far, Supot believed the country’s higher-educational institutes had ended up at no more than the 1.2 version, even if Thailand 4.0 was their goal.

“At this point, fewer than 10 per cent of Thai higher-educational institutions are research universities,” he said.

Supot said the Office of Higher Education Commission has endorsed just nine institutions as research universities. However, these universities still focus on having their academic papers published in international journals, which were the goal of the Thailand 2.0 only in terms of the country’s research capabilities.

“Anyway, some universities have now been trying to seek patents and push for the utilisation of their research findings too. If they successfully reach that point, they will reach the Thailand 3.0 and Thailand 4.0 stages,” Supot said.

For the higher-education sector to move from Thailand 1.2 to Thailand 4.0, Supot recommended that organisations embrace the guidance of His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

“Follow his guidance about understanding, reaching out to, and developing our targets. Also, don’t encourage students to compete against their friends. Rather, talented students should be encouraged to help teach their peers,” Supot said.

THE JUNTA government’s freshly established Super-Committee, overseeing a range of issues from reforms to reconciliation, plus long-term national strategy, claims it will not only integrate administration work, but also try to achieve a “rounded democratisation” with a new society – dubbed Thailand 4.0 – as its first and foremost goal.

However, the gigantic model, the outline for which was finished just over a week ago, does not spell out clearly yet how it will practically and efficiently integrate these issues, without possible civil service redundancies, experts in public administration said.

Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha last Tuesday, in his capacity as junta head, invoked his power under Article 44 under the Interim Charter to set up the Super-Committee, otherwise known as the administrative committee for reform, reconciliation and national strategy. Prayut himself sits as its chairman alongside various deputies, ministers, experts and representatives from 12 public-private-Pracharat committees.

Nominees from the civil sector have not been named yet, but prominent civil society figures such as Poldej Pinprateep or Prawet Wasi could be possible candidates.

The Super-Committee will oversee four committees. The first, functional committee would work on strategic administration. This has been dubbed as a mini-Cabinet, while the latter three focus on preparations for reforms, 20-year national strategy, plus unity and reconciliation, respectively.

These four committees are also headed by Prayut, with one or two of his deputies as vice chairmen.

Top parliamentary figures from the National Legislative Assembly and the National Reform Steering Assembly also sit on all committees except the mini-Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the PM’s Delivery Unit (PMDU), mocking the Britain unit, is planned to help track the committees’ performances, as well as creating relevant public information.

The Super-Committee and its four underlings will be coordinated by PM’s Office Minister Suvit Maesincee, as secretary. He will play a key role in targeting and achieving these goals.

At the heart of this effort is the newly grouped 10 strategic plans squeezed from five main steering agendas towards the new society of Thailand 4.0. They include creating “21st century citizens”, community-based businesses, innovation-based industries, provincial cluster empowerment, and global connections.

During an exclusive interview with The Nation, Suvit explained that the Super-Committee would help integrate these 10 strategic plans under the mini-Cabinet with 37 reform issues drawn from the previous work of the National Reform Council and National Reform Steering Assembly to push the Thailand 4.0 goal.

The goal is designed to advance the country’s capacity and competency in modern global arena through enforcement of innovation, digital technology, and last but not least, developing workers with knowledge to that they strengthen the community, and industry, and develop global links later on.

To achieve this, Suvit said it was crucial to create steady ground, which was why reconciliation was part of the agenda. But unlike previous efforts in that direction, which focused on getting the two conflicting political camps to resolve their differences, this time they would seek to resolve the true root cause of the problem – inequality. And to achieve this, the committees concerned were eyeing “economic democratisation”, he said, or simply put, giving every citizen the equal right to prosper.

So, instead of discussing solutions for political goals or conflicts among concerned parties, the committee concerned would invite them to come up with ideas on 10 national goals that are root problems obstructing growth and national development, such as land problems, or inequality.

The committees would give politicians a chance to help resolve problems impeding development and fuelling conflict. But he declining to say if political problems need definite solutions at this time.

“People will not be willing to compromise if their pockets are still left empty,” the PM’s Office Minister said. “Political and economic agendas have to go along with each other, naturally. This is why we came out with this model to move all issues forward under mutual strategies,” he said.

Suvit dubbed the committee’s approach as “democratisation”, both in political and economic ways, to prepare the country not only for next year’s general election, as designated by the government’s roadmap, but also for long-term sustainability.

Although the government may only have another year or so in office, Suvit ensured that development of both “democratizations” will be in parallel with each other. For instance, while the reconciliation committee should produce an “agreement of truth” to be signed by several political blocs after a few months, some flagship projects to help create economic freedoms could also flourish. For example, key herbs would be looked at as a basis for an industry to generate jobs and income based on traditional knowledge the country has, he said.

‘Doubts on overlapping procedures, redundant workloads’

However, Arunee Santhitiwanich, a lecturer on public administration from Ubon Ratchathani University, feared that attempts to integrate |all goals together would create more procedures that would overlap, and redundant workloads among |agencies.

The Super-Committee’s structure dispersing goals to its underlings, she said, could render ministries less efficient. For example, no permanent secretary of a ministry were on top ranks of any committee despite being the best experts on their own bodies. There were places for ministers |but the academic they seemed like political goals.

“In fact, this is a core problem of the Thai bureaucratic system. Less attention is paid to each individual body,” she said.

The concept of integration, while attempting to drive everything in the same direction, however could create a power loophole. “Even integration among provincial authorities is hardly possible,” she said. “In practice, the powerful provinces will influence over all.”

Meanwhile, all Cabinet members have responsibilities in the new committees, but it was not clearly spelt out as to whether Cabinet itself would have to receive proposals from the Super-Committee.

“If that is so, it would mean that the Cabinet would have to screen even more issues and use up more time doing that,” she said. “This could affect strategic drives in practical terms as other bigger problems may get sufficient time.”

Arunee said justice, legislative, and parliamentary mechanisms already exist, which are capable of dealing with reform issues and long-term strategy goals. “It raises questions why deputy prime ministers are assigned to look over these issues,” she said. “One possibility is to prioritise tasks based on political reasons.”

HPV is a cause of cervical cancer, the second most common type of cancer among Thai women.

TCCS president Dr Sarikapan Wilailak, of Ramathibodi Hospital, and Chulabhorn Hospital gynaecologist Dr Nattavut Kantathavorn shared their knowledge on cervical cancer and HPV at a press conference for the campaign.

“Presently, 8,184 Thai women [on average] are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, although such cancer can be prevented by the HPV vaccination,” Sarikapan said.

“The vaccine can lower the |risk of HPV types 16 and 18 infection, which is the main cause of cervical cancer, by as much as 90 per cent.

“It’s critical to educate and raise awareness of the disease among women and families with young daughters because the vaccine can be given to girls as early as the age of nine. The prevention should to be done at an early stage.”

Nattavut, who also works at Chulabhorn Hospital’s Centre for Women’s Health, said: “All women must regularly perform self-examinations and annually meet a gynaecologist for HPV and cervical cancer screenings. Educating the public on the disease will help lower the risk of cervical cancer among Thai women.

“Currently, many countries, such as Australia, the United States, Canada as well as Asean countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Laos and Brunei, show awareness of the need to protect young people against cervical cancer and provide HPV vaccines to young girls at the age of 11-12.”

In addition to the “Stop Cervical Cancer” campaign, Chulabhorn Hospital’s Centre for Women’s Health is supporting the “I Say ‘Yes’ to Stop Cervical Cancer” initiative, which aims to help low-income cancer patients.

People who donate money under the campaign can get either a free cervical screening test, a HPV DNA screening or a HPV vaccination, according to whether they donate Bt790, Bt1,590 or Bt1,990 at the centre.

The screening and vaccination service could be passed onto others when appropriate, Nattavut said.

Donations can be made until September 30. For more information about the donation campaign, call Chulabhorn Hospital at 02-576-6833 to 36.