Many education experts debated the topic “Education Welfare in the Constitution” at Thammasart University yesterday and stressed that education was a basic right that everyone should have access to equally while urging people to campaign for their own right to education.

Education rights activist Thanapong Muensaen said the authorities’ understanding of education still focused on using the education system to serve their political ideology, which was to ensure state stability.

“Such education policies have contributed to the severe disparity in the education system, as we can see from the fierce competition to get a high grade, for instance, on the Ordinary National Educational Test (O-NET) without considering |sustainability in the education system,” Thanapong said.

“The disparity in the education system also bars the poor from getting a proper education to improve their life quality, because of the lack of support from the government, which in the end will widen the social class disparity.”

‘Improvement unlikely’

Labour rights activist Patchanee Khamnak argued that the education policies of the military government would not result in improvement and urged people to campaign for the education system they wanted.

“Everyone must have access to free and quality education equally. Athough the constitution ensures that people can get 12 years of free education, it still lacks a quality assurance, and education agencies always assess education in terms of numbers and statistics,” Patchanee said.

“We must forge a good and quality education |system of our own.”

Vachararutai Boontinand, a lecturer at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University, said that the right to education was an essential basic right for everyone, and international law asserted that everyone had the right to go to school for free.

“The right to education is very important, because it is the first right for people to have before they can secure other important rights such as the right to information, or political rights,” Vachararutai said.

She added that even though the constitution did not outline clear education policies, the government could promote a proper right to education through their policies.

Many education experts debated the topic “Education Welfare in the Constitution” at Thammasart University yesterday and stressed that education was a basic right that everyone should have access to equally while urging people to campaign for their own right to education.

Education rights activist Thanapong Muensaen said the authorities’ understanding of education still focused on using the education system to serve their political ideology, which was to ensure state stability.

“Such education policies have contributed to the severe disparity in the education system, as we can see from the fierce competition to get a high grade, for instance, on the Ordinary National Educational Test (O-NET) without considering |sustainability in the education system,” Thanapong said.

“The disparity in the education system also bars the poor from getting a proper education to improve their life quality, because of the lack of support from the government, which in the end will widen the social class disparity.”

‘Improvement unlikely’

Labour rights activist Patchanee Khamnak argued that the education policies of the military government would not result in improvement and urged people to campaign for the education system they wanted.

“Everyone must have access to free and quality education equally. Athough the constitution ensures that people can get 12 years of free education, it still lacks a quality assurance, and education agencies always assess education in terms of numbers and statistics,” Patchanee said.

“We must forge a good and quality education |system of our own.”

Vachararutai Boontinand, a lecturer at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University, said that the right to education was an essential basic right for everyone, and international law asserted that everyone had the right to go to school for free.

“The right to education is very important, because it is the first right for people to have before they can secure other important rights such as the right to information, or political rights,” Vachararutai said.

She added that even though the constitution did not outline clear education policies, the government could promote a proper right to education through their policies.

INVESTIGATIONS into the Rolls-Royce bribery scandal have expanded to energy giant PTT, where the national anti-graft agency is looking into an allegation that its employees accepted bribes of more than Bt385 million from the British engine-maker.

Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit, president of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), said yesterday he has instructed the agency’s secretary-general, Sansern Poljieak, to determine the facts of the allegation as soon as possible.

PTT and its subsidiary PTT Exploration and Production were mentioned in an inquiry by the United States’ Department of Justice, which found that employees of the two companies were involved in accepting bribes from Rolls-Royce of more than Bt385 million.

Rolls-Royce employees allegedly hired intermediaries in Thailand to help it secure contracts with PTT, the state-owned energy company. In one instance, an employee and senior executive discussed how a large payment would be disguised in the company’s accounting software. More than $11 million of corrupt payments were made over 10 years, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, PTT president and chief executive officer Tevin Vongvanich yesterday said in a company statement that a committee has been set up to investigate the procurements of past projects involving Rolls-Royce equipment and services.

The committee was given 30 days to establish facts and submit them to PTT’s board of directors, he said, adding that the firm would treat the matter seriously for the sake of transparency under its good governance practice.

Watcharapol, the NACC president, said yesterday that he could not specify an exact period when his agency would complete the investigation into Thai Airways International’s alleged involvement in the bribery scandal. THAI’s top executive announced on Wednesday he would set up a special task force to investigate the matter.

The anti-graft body is coordinating with Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, the US Department of Justice, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission on allegations that Bt1.25 billion in bribes were paid by Rolls-Royce to state agencies and THAI employees from 1991 to 2005.

“The NACC will expedite to complete the fact-finding over the bribery case soonest by looking into who else were involved with the bribes,” said Watcharapol.

Officials from Rolls-Royce (Thailand) reportedly met with THAI President Charamporn Jotikasthira yesterday but no details were released.

Captain Yothin Phamornmontri, THAI’s former executive vice president operations, said the national airline started using Rolls-Royce engines when it purchased Boeing 777-200s, a new model at that time. This aircraft model was designed to be suitable with only two brands of engines made by the US’s GE and Rolls-Royce.

He said then-THAI management chose Rolls-Royce engines because the firm had developed its engines continuously. Also, Rolls-Royce engines were found to be of better value than its competition, he added. Therefore, THAI decided to use Rolls-Royce’s T800 engine for its Boeing 777-200s.

“However, there were differences between the two aerospace firms in that GE was written in the agreement that any purchase transactions would be executed directly, not done through the intermediaries system like Rolls-Royce,” said Yothin.

Thanong Bidaya, who served as THAI chairman between June 2002 and March 2005, denied he was involved in the bribery case. “I never approved the purchase of Rolls-Royce’s T800 engines, which happened before I took the chairman’s post,” he said.

Former MP Wattana Muangsook yesterday posted a Facebook message saying his then-Cabinet led by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra was not involved in the bribery scandal.

He said THAI was a listed company and it had the authority to design specifications and procurement of the engines while the Cabinet had no authority to approve the purchase.

Wattana served as commerce minister during the Thai Rak Thai Party-led government between 2004 and 2005, when bribes were allegedly paid.

He denied he was involved in the bribes.

Meanwhile, outspoken former MP Chuwit Kamolvisit yesterday told reporters at Parliament House that he would back the government’s investigation team to probe the bribes.

“I don’t believe that they will be able to find any wrongdoers over the bribes since the case has been occurring for decades … Even though the timeframe of investigations is set to be final within 30 days, there will be an extension,” he said.

Chuwit said that he had the same set of documents as the British courts, but declined to elaborate more on the names of involved persons.

In Indonesia, the country’s Corruption Eradication Commission has named former Garuda CEO Emirsyah Satar as a suspect for allegedly receiving kickbacks from Rolls-Royce in exchange for buying planes fitted with the company’s engines.

Jatupat protested against the deliberation process being conducted behind closed doors, said his lawyer. Krisadang Nucharat. He told The Nation that the court’s deliberation was closed except for Jaupat, his parents, and his lawyers.

Krisadang said the pro-rights and democracy activist argued that the deliberation accompanied the detention request, not the accusations against him, so it should not be held behind closed door.

Krisadang said Jatupat, also known as “Pai Daodin”, refused to sign the paper to acknowledge yesterday’s deliberation.

Jatupat has already been in detention for 48 days, and the maximum detention period is 84 days.

His father, Wiboon, said the fight was no longer about his son’s renewed bail requests or bids to oppose the previous revocation of his bail – it was a fight against the whole justice system

Jatupat may have to sit his university exams in prison after the court rejected his latest bail application.

He believed that it was his right to have the deliberation in an open manner.

Krisadang said the closed-door practice had occurred since the first detention request against his client.

Jatupat has been the only person charged with violating the lese majeste law and the Computer Crime Act.

It followed him sharing the BBC Thai article about the monarchy on his Facebook page in early December. More than 2,000 other people shared the article.

He was initially released on Bt400,000 bail. But a Khon Kaen police officer filed a petition with the court, saying Jatupat continued to incite the public on social media and he could tamper with evidence if he remained free. Further posts on his Facebook page while on bail were seen to have ridiculed authorities.

The court cancelled the bail, saying he had violated the bail agreement. The Appeal Court upheld the first court’s ruling and the Supreme Court upheld the rulings by both courts.

Earlier this month, Jatupat’s legal team made another attempt to secure bail but the application was rejected.

He has one set of exams to sit in order for him to graduate from Khon Kaen University.

The Rights and Liberties Protection Department has sought permission from the university to let him take the exams in jail.

Yingluck’s petition argues that the order was unlawful and unfair to her, according to a press release from the court yes?terday.

The petition named Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and four other Cabinet mem?bers as defendants, according to the court.

Earlier yesterday, Yingluck said she has petitioned the Administrative Court to revoke the administrative order made by the Finance Ministry.

The court has scheduled the trial to start at 1.30pm on December 26.

She said that her legal team has been in the process of seek?ing a court verdict against the order.

However, Yingluck declined to discuss the matter in detail, saying that she would disclose more at a later time.

The post-coup government has estimated that the previous administration led by Yingluck incurred damages estimated at Bt178 billion stemming from its corruption-plagued project. It was estimated that the former prime minister was responsible for Bt35 billion of the damages.

Yingluck yesterday attended the ninth hearing of defence witnesses by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders in a case where she is accused of negli?gence in connection with the rice-pledging scheme.

She was greeted by a large number of supporters and scores of police officers were also dispatched to the court to keep law and order.

During yesterday’s court hearing of defence witnesses, Yanyong Puangraj, who served as deputy commerce minister in Yingluck’s government, said he did not think there were irregularities involving the rice-pledging scheme.

He said, it would be “diffi?cult” to include smuggled rice grown outside the country in the scheme, which offered to buy “every grain of rice” from farmers at prices higher than the market value.

He said that over the two years it was in power, the pre?vious government sold more than 20 million tonnes of rice from the state stock, more than any other administration in the past.

The US under Trump would confront and have conflicts with China over economic and security matters, but it would be a huge mistake if countries in Southeast Asia played the China card, said David Shambaugh, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington DC.

Although Trump has not clearly defined his policy towards Asia-Pacific, Shambaugh anticipated there would be continuity in general policy towards the region.

“Although Trump said members of ally countries should pay a fair share [for a security arrangement], I don’t anticipate a dramatic change that would make the US return to isolationism,” he said. “I don’t think we could see significant change at the regional level.”

The billionaire president has brought a lot of business executives into his administration, including the former chief executive officer of ExxonMobil Rex Tillerson as the Secretary of State, suggesting his economic-oriented policies would dominate, rather than human rights.

“Thailand and other countries will not come under as much pressure as in previous years,” Shambaugh said. “Human rights are already embedded in the American policy, it is a key part of foreign policy but the emphasis that diplomats give it might be different,” he said.

Shambaugh, who is also an expert on China affairs, suggested that Asean countries have well balanced relations with both China and the US.

While the two superpowers are competing and conflicting in some aspects, relations between Washington and Beijing are not a zero-sum game, he said.

“There is no reason at all that any countries in Southeast Asia should not to have strong relations with both the US and China,” he said. “And it is not the American position either that countries in Southeast Asia choose between the US and China,” he said.

“All members of Asean have quite well-developed relations with China,” he said. “Every Asean country, such as Thailand which is a long-time ally [of the US], should develop strong ties with China in terms of culture, commerce and recently military,” he said.

“That’s fine. You train your military officers with China as well as with the US, nothing wrong with that. You buy weapons from US, Sweden and China, nothing wrong with that,” he said.

Security ties between Thailand and the US are deep and strong, he said. “Thailand and the US held 83 joint exercises last year and, from my research, had only nine with China. 83 to 9 is a very big difference,” he said.

The US security relationship increased with many countries in Asean significantly with Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar. “The US military assistance to Asean is something China cannot match,” he said.

However, playing only the China card would be a mistake, he said and noted that Myanmar has had a bad experience since the previous regime.

“The US is thousands of miles away, but China is right next door, but the US can serve as a balancing effort and it can offer many advantages especially diplomatic but not serious economic benefits,” he said.

China is obviously growing fast; its trade with Asean was worth $527 billion last year, double the Asean-US trade.

While China can provide a lot of economic interest to countries in the region, the US expert urged them to be wary. Chinese purchasing real estate in many countries is not desirable, he warned.