Thai Education Assessment and Quality Assurance

Mar 23, 2010

Quality assurance for Thai universities

 

In the past, education regulations were prescribed by the former Ministry of University Affairs, which was also the main accreditation body. Since the enactment of the National Education Act (www.edthai.com/act/index.htm) in 1999, the Ministry of Education has set up a new quality assurance and accreditation system.

The system covers both internal and external quality assurance. Internal quality assurance is the responsibility of each individual education institution. External quality assurance falls under the responsibility of the Office of the National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA). This is an independent public organization, and is not part of the Ministry of Education.

Thailand is currently still working on setting up an accreditation system. An initial assessment was carried out by ONESQA in 2002, and 81 higher education institutions were assessed in 2004. ONESQA has now set up a subcommittee tasked with streamlining the regulations and criteria that apply to accreditation methods. For further information on ONESQA please visit www.onesqa.or.th

Thailand has no official ranking system for higher education institutions, though the state universities traditionally have a good reputation.

Assessment system for students

The assessment of secondary education subjects uses the ‘Grade Points’ system. In higher education, the system is based on credits. One credit stands for one hour of lectures.
Subjects are marked as follows:
 
 Mark    Description    Grade Point       
A           excellent       4       
B+         very good     3.5       
B           good             3       
C+         fairly good    2.5       
C           fair                2       
D+        poor              1.5       
D          very poor       1       
F           failure            0       
I           incomplete            
W         withdrawn            
WF       withdrawn due to failure            
AU        audit         

To enter into public universities, National Institute of Educational Testing Service (public organization) (www.niets.or.th) is responsible for the tests for all candidates. There are recently some controversies regarding the quality of the exam questions. It is now being widely discussed.  

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