Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

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primary, secondary and tertiary levels. As a result the central government has decentralized the
powers and responsibilities; local bodies or local governments have been given more power and
authority, educational institutions have been given more autonomy, community and private
sector are contributing more effectively. At the advent of the 21 st century a package of policy
reforms called the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) (2005-2010) was introduced
that also include the Schools First Initiative and the Philippine Education For All (EFA) 2015 to
improve basic education outcomes and to achieve EFA goals by 2015.
Thailand
In early 90s Thai education went under drastic reforms to serve and respond the societal needs to
the face the challenges of globalization and internationalization as in 1992 National Scheme of
Education was promulgated. The key motives of the reform process were; to establish knowledge
society, to promote skills and competencies based learning, to improve the educational
management system, to encourage decentralization, to enhance the private sector role in
education, to expend and extend higher education, to support quality assurance initiatives and to
mobilize more resources.
The reform of the entire education system in Thailand was recommended, in 1996, in a report of
a special non-governmental Commission on Thailand‟s Education. In 1996 a master plan of
teacher reform was approved to improve the teaching profession status and teachers quality and
in 1997, Teacher Education Reform Office (TERO) launched five innovative programs: national
teacher awards; special allowance for in-service training; new-generation teacher education;
school rating; school visits by leading Thai professionals. In 1997 the basic education duration
was increased to 12 years and policies were framed to further improve the teaching profession
and to enhance the quality of education at all levels. Likewise in the higher education sector also
reform were introduced to promote equality, quality, efficiency, acceptability, unity in diversity,
effectiveness of system management, and decentralization of administration and management In
1999 the National Education Act was promulgated to bring reforms in teaching-learning process
from basic to higher education level and structural reform in the administration to enhance the
efficiency. This Act provided a framework for further education reform in all sub-sectors. In the
the National Education Act, the Office of Educational Reform was established in 2000 to work
on decentralized finance and administration, autonomy for individual teachers and institutions to
set curricula and to mobilize resources. In October 2002, a twelve-year free basic education