Huachiew aims to build on its Chinese expertise
Feb 15, 2011
University gearing up for changes with Asean Community in 2015
Chularat Saengpassa
Wannapa Khaopa
As the university with the most experience in Chinese curricula in the country, Huachiew Chalermprakiet (HCU) now aims to become a leader in Chinese studies and data in Asean, an executive from the university said recently.
A new centre - the Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture - was opened late last year to boost its Chinese expertise.
HCU vice president and Asst Prof Uraipan Janvanichyanont, who is dean of the new faculty, gave an exclusive interview to The Nation recently. She said: "Huachiew is a Chinese word that means 'overseas Chinese'. It is used to refer to the Chinese who sought refuge with His Majesty the King in the past. So, HCU was supported by the Chinese people who live in Thailand to seek mercy from him and the country.
"And a main mission of HCU is to provide Chinese curricula. So, it became the first university in this country that offered Chinese teaching. HCU has had Chinese teaching expertise for 20 years since it was established in 1990.
"We want to be a leading centre that can provide a database about Chinese people's lives in Thailand, so we have invested Bt4 million to scan 1.2 million newspaper pages published in Thailand in Chinese language.
"Thus, this database will become an important source for other Asean countries to study Chinese people's history in Thailand from the online databases."
National Library of Thailand has given HCU newspapers up 100 years old to be scanned.
"Also, we plan to be a leader of Chinese studies in Asean after we've built Chinese teaching as HCU's feature identity. We want students from our neighbouring countries to choose HCU when they study Chinese as their third language.
"A Chinese medicine programme will be available in EnglishChinese and ThaiChinese to serve them, too," she said.
In a bid to encourage students from neighbouring countries to study at HCU, it offers them scholarships to further master's degrees there.
There are only a few students from Laos and Vietnam. So, it has come up with an idea to grant other students in Laos, Vietnam, Burma (Myanmar) and Cambodia scholarships to study bachelor's degrees.
"Cambodia and Laos are our main targets," Uraipan said.
HCU has 44 partner universities in China, which are an important factor for developing its Chinese expertise. They have exchanged lecturers, students and knowledge, jointly created Chinese curricular and provided dual degree programmes.
About 200 students majoring in Chinese language are sent to China for one year to study the language there each year. There are now 300 exchange Chinese students from Taiwan and China.
In addition to the faculty that was opened to strengthen the university's Chinese expertise, its two institutes and a centre also pay a crucial role in developing such a unique expertise of HCU. They are ThaiChinese studies and ThaiChinese business institutes and Teochiu knowledge centre. They provide training, carry out research on ThaiChinese related issues, giving knowledge about China to people and do business matching for entrepreneurs in both countries.
This university has provided Bt5 million for its personnel to conduct research on Chinese studies yearly to improve its academic knowledge, while another Bt5 million on the country's eastern region developฌment research and Bt20 million on food research that can integrate with other sciences.
Uraipan said her university had to brace for ASEAN economic comฌmunity in 2015 as many other universities were doing. It would provide more curricula in English rather than the current business administration programme that was available in English and Chinese programmes.
With more than 10,000 students and as HCU is preparing for supporting more foreign students, an expansion project is needed to widen the university.
The vice president said invested Bt200 million in buying 16 rai areas of bankrupt Muang Thong Bang Na condominium project with incomplete construction. It is located near the university.
"We will pay Bt1.6 billion for renovation, which will start from June," she said, adding that classroom buildings, foreign students' dormitories, lecturers' offices, language laboratories, a fitness, a convention hall and a hotel would be built up there.
Meanwhile, stopping a decrease in number of newly recruited students is a hard job for the university.
Uraipan said severe competition of direct admissions by state and autonomous universities had affectฌd HCU, in which they provided many rounds of the admissions to provide more students chances to study with them. Rajabhat Universities that offered many forms of studying to meet different demands of different aspect students had also affected HCU.
"To survive, private universities have to make their programmes different from others. Fortunately, HCU has Chinese expertise as our strong points. So, we can maintain number of our newly recruited students."
"Also, HCU has flexible management. Every year, we open a few new programmes. But, we can close any of them if they aren't successful after two years of the opening. They don't have enough students to study or no demands in labour market for graduates from those programmes. This is what HCU is different from other state universities. We're more flexible," she said.
For example, information techฌnology (regular programme) and law (special programme) have been closed.