After almost 40 years....

Hello Tuesday to all ka.

The past weekend was a special one for me. It was about my first and last teaching career after my graduation from the Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University.

Because of the LINE, we all tend to get to meet long lost friends and for me some more students who I taught 40 years ago.

I have many opportunities to meet them and to talk with their children about their future and studies. This time, my student asked me to talk with his kids. He was  a bit worried about his daughter's plan to go for 2 summer courses in England.

After having talked with his girl who is now a sophomore in an engineering school, I told my student he shouldn't worry too much as his daughter is really mature and she knows how to verify the information and what to decide!

I looked at my student and couldn't be more proud of him....how much his caring for his kids was. I couldn't believe my very young student could grow up to be very responsible, building a very stable family with 3 fine kids.

My happiness was interrupted by what this student showed me. He took out an 'air letter/aerogram' (what the younger generations no longer know what it is!). It was one of the letters I wrote to the whole class dated November 19, 2522.

It was a very pleasant surprise ka!

I felt really touched because I didn't expect a guy (my wrong thinking kaa!) to keep such a thing for this long even! I also wanted to know what I wrote then!

Even when the class I taught was considered the best, I warned them not to overestimate themselves and not to simply go for mor sor+ 4 and 5 (grades 11 and 12) out of the fad (kids felt so cool since then to go for the upper secondary, not the vocational track; and top students tended to enter 'triam udom' only). I underlined this sentence to them ka, 'จงเรียนสิ่งที่ตัวเองถนัด'.....learn what they can do best.

Looking back, I held tight somehow to self-assessment na ka! The training, 'Who am I?' emphasized that we all are able to do many things but there're only handful stuff we can do real real well ka!

A short while ago, a song, 'Little things mean a lot' was on.....just right for the story I'm sharing loei ka.

Mee kwam suk jung ka!

OECD, IZN, mobility

Hope the Songkran holiday was a touching one with love from family and friends ka.

I read a new book on, ‘The Tertiary Education Imperative: Knowledge and Skills for Development’ by Jamil Salmi, 2017 and thought of our Thailand 4.0, which emphasizes on creativity and innovation.

The book quoted the new OECD Innovation Strategy (2015a) about it and I think it’s useful for us to consider the following characteristics: 

·       “A skilled workforce that can foster new ideas and generate new technologies, bring them to the market, and implement them in the workplace, and that is able to adapt to technological and structural changes across society.

·       A sound business environment that encourages investment in technology, that enables innovative firms to experiment with new ideas, technologies and business models, and that helps them to grow, increase their market share and reach scale.

·       A strong and efficient system for knowledge creation and diffusion that invests in the systematic pursuit of fundamental knowledge.

·       Policies that encourage innovation and entrepreneurial activity.

·       A strong focus on governance and implementation. The impact of policies for innovation depends heavily on their governance and implementation, including the trust in government action and the commitment to learn from experience.”

 Very challenging dimensions from national economic policies and practice to systems and environment ka! We tend to paint many beautiful policies with inadequate synergy and continuity of qualified workforce ka.

Can our higher education community speed itself up fast enough ka?

As I have a firm belief in internationalization of education to sharpen our workforce’s capabilities, it was good to be confirmed by Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit in an article on, ‘Revolutions ahead in international student mobility’, University World News. April 7, 2017 Issue No. 454.

Despite changes particularly in the West, the authors state that universities remain committed to internationalization. They understand that knowledge is global, that international students are important both to the education mission and in some cases to the financial 'bottom line', that hiring the best brains available globally to serve on faculty is necessary not only to ensure quality and to bring intellectual and social diversity to an institution, but in some cases to fill hiring gaps where domestic scholars are unavailable.

Unarguably, more international students are needed for a few good reasons but definitely not for the financial aspect as the highest priority. One favorable indicator of our IZN is to recruit best brains of students and faculty so as to live up to our successful higher education missions and Thailand 4.0.

Universities with an autonomous status need to be bold to create cross –cultural environments, facilities, and incentives that can attract best international students and retain high quality pool of international faculty alike.

all about networking

Dear all, hope this week will be much lighter with Songkran around the corner na ka.

I wasn't writing last week and was wondering what had kept me busy or not really busy but lazy.

When looking back since my retirement, I've seen myself doing a lot of networking activities basically digitally ka. It seems that I've got a good number of requests from seeking for a professor or a speaker to offering advice about some issues like IZN or overview of quality development.

Yesterday I reconnected with an executive who I've known for over two decades through a good friend. We ended up having a little more link with the fourth one who may need some help from the three of us.

My conclusion: Networking skills are really helpful.

My question: How?

My reflections are as follows:

- Stay connected as one needs to be consistent in terms of communication.

- Offer to help when asked or before being asked.

- Be selective to link people up since we can't possibly work on all requests. Partly it's because we need to be sure we know both ends quite well to know the link-up will work and even it isn't a success, both sides can enjoy getting to know each other a little.

- Ask for permission before linking the two together.

- Follow up to see if we may have burdened our contact with our requests, and to thank them for their help.

All in all, I think there're three key terms here ka...symbiotic relationship, volunteerism, and caring. When we show our willingness to help and when our requests aren't just from our own needs but to help others, networking works beautifully ka.

Happy Songkran ka.

Porntip