66 Pad Lavankura and Rattana Lao
second-order level, while ignoring the first-order changes. Thailand, as
a developing country, has to be quick to “catch up with the West” such
that Thai higher education pursues “new goals”, “structures” and “roles”
without concerning themselves with improving the existing content,
and thereby creating short-term negative effects to the higher education
system. The end result is that Thai higher education would experience
only superficial level change without fundamentally altering the system.
QUANTITATIVE EXPANSION OF
INTERNATIONALIZATION IN THAILAND
This section illustrates the quantitative expansion of internationalization of
Thai higher education. Three types of issues are discussed: the expansion of
international programmes, the proliferation of international students, and
the increase in the number of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)
between Thai and foreign institutions.
International Programmes
Over the past twenty-five years, the number of international programmes
has increased considerably (see Figure 3.1).
While the first international programme began in the 1960, it was not
until the mid-1990s that there has been a significant proliferation in Thai
higher education. The MUA (2003) reported that there were approximately
100 international programmes in 1992: fifty-eight Bachelor’s degree
programmes, fifty-five Master’s degree programmes and nineteen Doctoral
programmes for public and private universities. Within a span of six
years, the number of international programs in Thailand had doubled at
all levels. While there were only 465 programmes in 2004, the number of
programmes had increased to 1,027 as of 2012. Table 3.1 shows the growth
of international programmes differentiated by degree.
The top ten institutions with the highest number of international
students are Assumption University, Mahachulalongkorn University,
Mahidol University, Ramkhamheang University, Durakijpundit University,
Burapa University, Chulalongkorn University, Chiang Rai Rajabhat
University, Khon Kean University and Thammasat University (Office of
Higher Education Commission [OHEC] 2011b, p. 17). Lao (2015) argued that
international programmes in Thailand reflects the institutional aspiration