Thai government urged to spend more on R&D projects

BANGKOK, February 21 (TNA) - The Thai government has been called on spending more state budgets to fund research and development (R&D) projects to expedite national development to keep pace with the fast global advancement. Prof. Dr. Suchatvee Suwansawat, President of King Mongkut's Institute of Technology (KMIT) Ladkrabang made the call on February 20, pointing out that Thailand's state budget on R&D projects has only been accounted for 0.28 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), compared with, for instance, 4 per cent in South Korea and 5 per cent in Isarel. Prof. Dr. Suchatvee proposed that the Thai government increase the annual state budget on R&D projects to 2 per cent of the country's GDP in order to support national development to keep pace with the fast global advancement. Prof. Dr. Suchatvee also called on the government to promote and support the opening of more campuses of world-classed universities in Thailand to boost more R&D projects, conducted by the universities, in the country. Meanwhile, the KMIT president, in his capacity as Chairman of the Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT), led a group of executives of over 200 universities nationwide to hold a meeting with Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) Chairman Chen Namchaisiri to discuss both sides' cooperation, the first of its kind in the country, on the production of graduates to mostly meet the demand of the country's industrial sector, emphasizing on the demand of the new S Curve innovative industrial sector in line with the government Thailand's 4.0 Policy. Tuesday's meeting agreed on the setting up of a joint task force to revise and develop curricula of higher educational institutes to include more science and technology courses and increase the training period of each student at any business firm to 8-10 months to build up their skills beneficial to their post-graduation work. Both sides then agreed to set up an independent institute within six months to work out the improved curricula in order to meet the demand of the Thai industrial sector and to support and materialize University-Industry Linkages (UIL) to integrate their working projects and to develop their trust and performance standards. (TNA)