Authoritarianism in Thai Higher Education: The Threats Against Academic Freedom and Productivity

DOI

10.2991/aebmr.k.210305.068How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Academic Freedom, Autonomous Universities, Thailand Higher Education

Abstract

This article seeks to highlight the most critical issues affecting the academic freedom of Thai academics. The issues have long plagued the productivity of Thai higher education sector. This article will argue that the threat to the academic freedom in Thai universities are not necessarily limited to the outside force or the government, but from the internal factors. It drew on data from laws and regulations, government publications, and academic articles to analyse the situation of the academic authoritarianism in Thailand. The article concurred with Southall and Cobbing [2] and Lao [3] that the accountability system and managerialism has adversely been affecting the nature of academic work. The authoritarianism has been manifested through the prescription of the strict regulations for higher education institutions. After the great economic collapse in 1997, Thai higher education subjected itself to reform and restructure. However, the transformation does not address the nature of ineffective bureaucratic system which pervaded the higher education domain. While the management effectiveness has not been improved. Academics have been experiencing unrealistic expectation in teaching, research publication output, administrative tasks, and multiple quality assurance processes. This leads to demoralization of teaching and research staff and lower outcome of student quality.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Prapassara Thanosawan
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/03/08
TI  - Authoritarianism in Thai Higher Education: The Threats Against Academic Freedom and Productivity
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd Southeast Asian Academic Forum on Sustainable Development (SEA-AFSID 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 376
EP  - 379
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.210305.068
DO  - 10.2991/aebmr.k.210305.068
ID  - Thanosawan2021
ER  -