80 Pad Lavankura and Rattana Lao
a programme, they have some criteria but we haven’t really highlighted
the quality of students as such as the quality of scholars” (p. 137).
This chapter argues that while internationalization of higher education
has taken place in Thailand, the quantitative expansion has not resulted
in raising the quality of the overall education. Internationalization, in
Thailand, has been translated to simply the creation of international
programmes. Meanwhile, its quality is narrowly defined by the presence of
Western lecturers. To meet the increasing demand for internationalization,
the second-order change has materialized in terms of the creation of new
programmes, new offices and new campuses. However, little has happened
in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of the existing programmes
as the proliferation of international programmes is faced with a dearth
of qualified academics willing to take up full-time positions and have
significant educational impacts. The problem of quality is coupled with the
limited and weak state capacity to ensure quality education to students.
Because the market incentive has trumped the academic rationale at the
national and institutional levels, the only hope to ensure the quality of
international programmes in Thailand is to generate greater awareness
amongst the academics of the need to push for quality education.
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