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guidelines and measures for HEI governance. This governance includes research and
development, as well as teaching and learning through the development of mecha-
nisms such as the Thailand Qualification Framework and Thailand as well as ASEAN
Citation Index.^1 Within the scope and mandate of the OHEC, the focus of the national
organisation therefore lies within the issue of managing HEIs rather than incubating
knowledge in Higher Education through research.^2 Following the reform of Higher
Education in 1999, the current Higher Education system and its policy have been
based on the national economic and social development plans and shifted towards
more autonomy among HEIs. Operating under the OHEC, HEIs are managing their
core businesses with more independence and flexibility through major higher educa-
tion policies and mechanisms. This is particularly visible in teaching and research,
human resource management, budgeting as well as quality assurance.^3
As a result of the Autonomous University Acts that do not allow newly estab-
lished universities to obtain the status of “governmental organisation” and that
encourage the existing HEIs to transform themselves into “autonomous universi-
ties”, one might consider the case of Thailand as more peculiar than others within
the region as the level of autonomy of Thai HEIs is extremely high. While central
agencies such as the OHEC monitor higher education policy and regulations, the
role of HEIs in enhancing and stimulating research in the sector is more prominent.
That is to say, within the context of high autonomy, HEIs in Thailand enjoy rela-
tively higher levels of academic freedom in designing their own courses in terms of
research emphases and directions (Dhirathiti 2012 ).
Currently, the Higher Education landscape in Thailand is clearly distinguished
by the differentiation between teaching-intensive HEIs and research-intensive HEIs.
Therefore, the sense of division of labour in teaching and learning vis-à-vis research
is clear. The former (also known as Rajabhat universities) will be providing most of
the educational services to the public via teaching. The latter HEIs provide educa-
tional services either through teaching or research. Some of the latter HEIs have
been chosen by the OHEC as national research-intensive universities (NRUs) and
are expected to prioritise their core academic activities in research (OHEC 2008b).
(^1) The full implementation handbook of Thailand Qualification Framework was developed by
OHEC in 2006, and together with the King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology (KMUTT), National
Research Council of Thailand and
Thailand Research Fund, OHEC has been the major supporter for the development of Thailand
Citation Index Centre and ASEAN Citation Index database (OHEC 2006 and http://www.kmutt.
ac.th/jif/public_html/history.html).
(^2) The role and mandates of the Office of Higher Education Commission (Thailand) include the fol-
lowing provisions: (1) the guidance for driving higher education policy and cultivating interna-
tional networking; (2) the coordination and the development of educational human resource and
student academic activities; (3) the research coordination for national development; (4) the guid-
ance on the establishing, merging or terminating HEIs or community colleges; (5) the monitoring
and assessing quality of HEIs as well as developing a database for HEIs; and (6) the secretariat role
for the OHEC.
(^3) The Secretariat of the House of Representatives (n.d.)
N.S. Dhirathiti