Evaluating a Local Administrator Training Program: An Empirical Study of the Thai Local Administrator Development Program, Department of Local Administration

Abstract

Training and development is a management practice basically aimed to enhance employees’ competencies in fulfi lling organizational missions. This article explores how participants in the Thai Local Administrator Development Program view contemporary problems of Thai local administration, and the extent to which the Program has addressed those problems. In addition, the training process and its success is investigated. The research instruments were a pre-post learning test, an open-ended questionnaire, unobtrusive observation, focus group, and semi-structured interviews conducted with two batches of a total of 134 executive trainees and fi e program administrators.

The results reveal that Thai local administration is facing issues such as budget defi cits, lack of community participation, confl icts of interest, corruption and patronage, and unreadiness for mission transfer. It was found that the current training program does not address preventive issues or corrective measures. The HRD guiding pradigm of the development program is still primarily occupied with training and education approaches even though aiming for a strategic goal-based approach. At its inception in 1989, four system components were included in the program: needs assessment, training design, implementation, and follow-up
evaluation. However, most recent attention has largely concentrated on implementation. The other three components are essentially ignored. Trainees expressed considerable positive reaction to the fulfi llment of training objectives. The post-training gain scores of both batches exhibited statistical signifi cance
which implies that participants achieved learning. The article concludes with recommendations and suggestions for future research.