Are (some Thai) universities dying?

Hello all, this week is really different from the previous one ka. Even when I have some to share, the issues don't really excite me that much ka. Now that I'm listening to a Secret Sauce podcast entitled, 'Is university dying?', I'm ready to share kaaa. The speakers came from two bodies, one from Thammasat university and the other from SkillLane, a private company offering numerous courses online ka. A few issues raised for discussion were: 1. Universities exist because they're very strong in academics and their abilities to assess learners' capabilities. 2. If there's any area universities aren't strong, they could collaborate with others like private companies or foreign universities, etc. 3. University education will be more open and accessible according to readiness and preference. We'll see more self-paced learning, courses that are shorter and readily available, and collaboration between universities and different business sectors. 4. Universities should focus more on what technology can't do. Lecturers should nurture students' creativity, help build on knowledge, facilitate learning, and inspire them. 5. Looking into the future, universities should see people's longer span of life so learning will be seen as what will cater to their contexts. So they should design credit banks without thinking strictly about degrees for universities to assess and offer relevant degrees for students to design their own degrees. TU wants to see itself as 'Open Integrated Platform'.....across disciplines as well. These are the questions that popped up ka: 1. What must be the changing role of universities? Only assessment, conferring degrees even by design, and collaboration? 2. Why do we look to partner with private companies and foreign unviersities without looking in much more seriously? Why do we tend to have the strong sense of in-country competition instead of synergy? 3. Can we think harder about the soft side of life .... life skills? Still appreciate Khun Tonson's SAFE -- Soul searching, Accepting diversity, Failure-is-fine zone, and Empathy. 4. Why do we tend not to give high priority to senior leaders to reskill/upskill themselves even before others? Recently, I heard several who said we offered this and that to our staff so they could be more capable....nothing about their own urgent needs ka. More thoughts from you please.