The Reforming of Thai Higher Education under the New Public Management Concept - The Adoption of the German Model in Thailand

Abstract

Higher education reform has been an issue of academic and political debate formany years. The problems leading tohigher education reform in different parts of the world are also varoius. However, there are some common key problems in different regions of the world. They are therapid increase in the number of students, the limitation of the budget for higher education and research, the competition for both domestic and international student admissions, including the rapid change in the use of technology for education and the changing demand and expectation from business. These problems call for higher education reform to adapt to the aforementioned changes. The vital principle adopted by many leading countries as tools for higher education reform is the New Public Management (NPM), of which essence is to apply the concepts of private business management to public administration, as well as the administration of universities. The critical mechanisms of the New Public Management (NPM) are customer satisfaction, result-based management, the increasing of executive power, and the administration focusing on competitive and market mechanisms. It would be useful to know how such management concept can be applied to public universities.

Germany is a leading industrial country with an excellent experience for university administration for hundreds of years. However, Germany has just adopted the concept of New Public Management to its higher education system, after this concept was already adopted in many other leading countries.Moreover, unlike others, the administration of German universities is based ontheir uniquetradition. Thus, it is veritably interesting to study how the concept of New Public Management can be applied to the administration of public universities in Germany and how it will be successful. The results can be compared to the higher education reform in Thailand. In relation to the higher education reform in Thailand, particularly the change of the university’s legal status to an autonomous university is consistent with the concept of New Public Management in many aspects.However,there are still many important mechanisms that are not truly implemented as a tool for higher education reform. Such mechanisms should be used to develop the management system of Thai universities to be more independent and effective. Therefore,this study aims to propose the possibility of applying the concept of New Public Management to Thai higher education as it has happened in many countries around the world.