problems and prospects public administration education in thialand

8/14/2019 Problems and Prospects Public Administration Education in Thialand

1/15

ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

THE PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONEDUCATION IN THAILAND

Uthai Laohavichien

For more than two decades, Thailand has given top priority to thedevelopment of the country. The government has paid attention to theFollowing goals: eradication of pove rty and unemploym ent; a moreequitable distribution of income; improvement in the quality of life;equity in a political system that encourages popular partic ipa tion ; anddefence against internal and external threats. The above objectives andgoals must inevitably call for government officials equipped with desirabledevelopmental attributes which can be put into practice. Thus, a publicadministration education programme in line with these specifications isneeded.As in most less developed countries (LDCs), public administrationeducation in Thailand has confronted several problems. Aside from theinadequacies of qualified teaching staff, indigenous materials, and teachingtechnologies, most curricula of public administration are not conducive tothe values, needs and the resources of the country. As can be seen in thelater part of this paper, most current curricula are patterned on Western orAmerican public administration models which are largely irrelevant toThailand. In addition, in order to transfer a public adm inistiation educationprogramme from a more advanced country to a LDC, one must be aware ofmany problems such as the question of unive rsality, value neutra lity, and theserious consideration of what can be transferred and what cannot betransferred. Moreover, scholars in many LDCs, including those in Thailand,are increasingly interested in the development of public administrationeducation programmes which are suited to the needs and values of eachcountry instead of merely adopting or im porting an entire programmefrom the West.

This paper is therefore an attempt to point out the problems ofcontemporary public administration education in Thailand and its futuredirection. Accordingly, effort will be made to describe publicadministration education in Thailand tracing back from the time of KingChulalongkom who ruled in the late 1890's to the present time. Thistreatment of the historical development of Thai public administrationeducation will serve as a basis for the discussion of its problems andprospects.Uthai Laohavichien is Associate Professor at the National In stitute ofDevelopment Administration, Bangkok, Thailand.

46


2/15


The Development of Public Administration Education in ThailandThe development of public adm inistration education in Thailand can betreated in five stages.1 . The combination of Public Law and the British TraditionPublic administration education in Thailand dates back to the time ofKing Chulalongkorn who, in 1899, instigated the establishment of variouseducational institutions to train Thais and to meet the increasing demandsof the public service. They are the Civil Servant School, the Royal PagesSchool, the Civil Servant School of King Chulalongkorn, and the Facultyof Public Administration and Law of Chulalongkorn University. All ofthese higher educational institutions were designed primarily to trainyoung men to serve in the public service. In 1899, the Civil ServantSchool was founded to train middle-level and clerical personnel for thepublic service. It was later replaced by the Royal Pages School which wasdesigned to familiarize government officials with court customs beforethey were assigned to posts in the provinces. The school also trained itsstudents to behave as gentlemen, to learn Thai customs and goodmanners.1 Students had to spend a period working under the directsupervision of the King, which enabled him to form judgments on his menbefore they were assigned to posts in the provinces.2 In 1910 the RoyalPages School was renamed the Civil Servant School of King Chulalongkornand was later transformed into Chulalongkorn University in 1917.3 At theoutset, Chulalongkorn University established four new faculties with theFaculty of Public Administration and Law as one of them.4 The primaryobjective of this fa cu lty was to train government officials as deputydistrict officers, a starting position in a hierarchy w hich included suchposts as governor and directors-general and culminated with the positionof undersecretary of the m inis try. The curricula of these schools were acombination of general administration, field training, humanities, policy,law, local government, political science and other social science courses.The courses offered in these schools were broad and general in nature. Theteaching of pub lic adm inistra tion, however, reflected a legalistic bias. Theprevailing notion was tha t a competent government offic ial must have agood background in law because law was regarded as essential to theunderstanding of public administration. Besides, a good governmentofficial, it was believed, must be a broad-minded person. This is in line

47


3/15


4/15


the study of administration was accordingly based on the principles oflogical positivism and a distinction between fact and value. Waldo, incontrast, aimed primarily at destroying certain dogmas in administrativescience, while at the same time rejecting classical theories which claimedto be "scientific" perspectives on public administration in terms ofneutrality and efficiency.7 Waldo proposed, rather, to relate publicadministration to democratic values and the political context. In otherwords, Waldo was dissatisfied with the "politics/administrationdichotomy" and the "principles of administration" which focussed mainlyon internal adm inistration. Public adm inistration, if it was to be meaningful,must take place w ithin a governmental co ntex t.8 Another critic of classicaltheories was Robert A. Dahl who identified three obstacles which hinderedthe establishment of a scientific basis for the study of publicadministration. These three obstacles were values, the individualpersonality, and the social framework.9 Dahl, like Waldo, was dissatisfiedwith the focus of the classical theories on internal administration. Instead,he related public administration to the social context which subsequentlybrought about the rise of the comparative public administrationmovement.10 In any event, Dahl emphasized the scientific study of publicadministration based on comparative analysis.

After the critiques of S imon, Waldo, and Dahl, public ad ministrationbecame confused in its dire ction and since then has undergone a crisis ofidentity.11 As Martin Landau observes, pub lic adm inistration lacked acomm on centre, for there was a lack of consensus as to the meaning ofthe term among its teachers and practitioners.12 During this period ofstagnation, most universities in the United States taught publicadministration with an emphasis on three core courses: organization andmanagement, public personnel administration, and public financialadministration. The belief was that these core courses would providestudents with an overall appreciation of the field of public administration,as well as providing them with an appropriate set of tools and techniques.An underlying assumption of the so-called "core beliefs tradition", derivedin part from the politics/adm inistration dich otom y, was that administra-tion was to be treated as an instrument rather than an end in itself.Accordingly, the primary purpose of schools of public administration wasto train students to serve in staff agencies as personnel officers, budgetofficers, organization and method specialists, train ing officers , and soforth.

While Am erican public adm inistration was facing a crisis of ide ntity ,the United States began its technical assistance programme to transferadvanced American technology to the less developed countries, w ith the

49


5/15


primary purpose of helping the LDCs to overcome basic problems such aspoverty, ignorance, and disease. The programme assumed implicitly thatcurrent knowledge and tools could be transferred from the more advancedcountries to the LDCs. In spite of the early realization that there wouldbe problems with technology transfer, many officials and publicadministrators were led by the ir biases into think ing that such a transfercould be accomplished w ith minor modifica tions . One of the first aids ofthe United States fo r the moderniza tion of the LDCs was to establishInstitutes of Public Administration in all parts of the world. It must bepointed out that the training provided by these institutions of publicadministration emphasized the so-called "core beliefs", which representedthe state of the art of American public administration at that time.In 1955 Indiana University entered into a con tract w ith ThammasatUniversity to establish an Institute of Public Administration to traingraduate students for M.P.A. degrees.13 The Institute was also responsiblefor the in-service tra ining of government officia ls at differen t levels. Theemphasis of this M.P.A. degree was well reflected by the "core beliefs" ofthe curriculum.14 Personnel administration, financial administration, andorganization and methods served not only to provide student with basicpublic administration knowledge, but also to impart tools and techniquesto them. The curriculum was also drawn up with the understanding thatadm inistration was instrum enta l, that it was a means to an end, and notan end in itself. A cco rding ly, values which prevailed in the Unites States,such as economy, efficiency, effectiveness, rationality and responsibilitywere emphasized. But although the inculcation of some of them mighthave been useful from the developmental perspective, it was not possibleto transplant the entire system of values from the United States toThailand. As a result, the M.P.A. degree switched from an emphasis onlaw, humanities, history, and philosophy to an emphasis on management.This curriculum was designed to provide the added advantage of givingstudents a bird's eye view of the f ield. The "core" offerings could beregarded as providing "nuts and bolts" of the programme. Its weakness,however, was that it trained students to be specialists rather than to beadministrators or officials engaging in line functions. The "core" offeringstended to treat pub lic adm inistration as the study of internaladm inistration. In effect, the Thai bureaucracy was looked upon as aclosed system. Hence, studying public administration without considera-tion of its con text was not on ly boring , but also rather useless. Tools andtechniques are useful on ly to a certain extent in the bureaucracy. When agovernment offic ial is prom oted to the "exe cu tive " level, he may realizethat values, theories, and models are more useful in the sense that theycan help the administrator to seek more relevant questions in order to

50


6/15


change the system. In any case, the "core" offerings equipped Thai publicadministrators with some degree of managerial knowhow. Publicadministrators in Thailand tended to cope with administrative problems interms of the principles of administration. It was strongly believed at thetime that "principles" in public administration could be developed inaccordance with the rules of scientific method. Hence the treatment ofadm inistration as outside the realm of po litics and policies encouraged theteaching of public administration along the line of the "core" offerings.3. The "Developmen t" TraditionDuring the late fiftes and early sixties, the study of public administrationin the United States saw the rise of comparative and developmentadministration. The emergence of comparative public administration wasdue to the explosion of behaviouralism, and development administrationgained ground because of the necessity of LDCs implementing theirdevelopmental programmes. Concurrently, the Institute of PublicAdministration of Thammasat University was in the process of convertinginto the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA). AfterNID A was founded , the School of Public A dm inistration drafted a newcurriculum in response to the country's need to produce graduates fornational development. The concept of "development administration" issomewhat different from that of "public administration." The differencebeing that a "development" environment usually requires an administrativesystem which performs a "change" function instead of a "maintenance"function. "Maintenance" functions are those activities necessary for thesmooth working of the organizational machinery. Examples include theprocedures for recruitment, promotion, implementation, and the review ofbudgets. In fact, this function is usually known as "pu blic adm inistra tion"or "status quo management." On the other hand, the "change" functioninvolves activities necessary to stimulate new ideas, policies, or procedures.The emphasis is on the process of change rather than on the substance ofthat wh ich is changed. Therefore, instead of view ing personnel orbudgeting procedures as ends in themselves, they are regarded as methodsfor increasing awareness of organization problems, the development ofalternative suggestions for problem-solving, and the testing and evaluationof the various methods used to stimulate the desired change. This isprecisely what is known as "developmen t ad m inistra tion" wh ich, inpractice, keeps the ultimate goals flexible so that they can evolve with themaximum participation and involvement of those concerned. Therefore, inorder to respond to these needs, NIDA proposed a new curriculum with

51


7/15


an emphasis on dev elopm ent. I t must be pointe d out that th is cu rric ulu m ,in fact, resembled that of the "core" offerings. The three core coursesremained almost the same, exce pt fo r some min or changes in one of the m ,namely, human behaviour in organizations, which used to be known asorganization and m ethods. In any event, th is cu rricu lum added a few newcourses in development and development administrat ion. Special con-sideration was paid to the contextual i t ies of the bureaucracy. On the otherhand, courses such as economics and social and political systems indeveloping countries show that th is M.P.A. degree emphasized not onlyinternal ad min istrat ion but also external adm inist rat io n, tha t is, stud yingthe interaction between the Thai bureaucracy and i ts environment.4. The "Programme Ad m inistration" TraditionAs mentioned above, the emphasis on "development" in the teaching ofpubl ic administrat ion had changed quite considerably from the original"core offerings." The change was a matter of adding some new courses inresponse to the then new f ie ld of development administrat ion. In 1970NIDA in troduced another curr icu lum a imed to emphasize developmentadministrat ion, the "core" offerings, and added the f ie ld of programmeadm inistrat ion the broader version of project managem ent,15 planning,organization design, logist ics, urban studies, environmental administrat ion,and publ ic enterpr ise. Another devia t ion f rom the previous curr icu lum wasan emphasis on management sciences manifested by the number of courseson quanti tat ive analysis. One unusual characterist ic of th is curriculum wasits requiremen t for pub l ic a dm inistrat ion students to expose themselves toeconomics and business adm inistr at ion . In practice, pub l ic ad min istrat ionstudents have to take five common courses with other schools. Thiscur ricu lum is thus more extensive when compared to the old curricu la.

The unde rlying phi losop hy of the new cur ricu lum requires graduatestudents trained in publ ic administrat ion to have an interdiscipl inaryapporach w hic h has three ram ifica tion s. Firs t, as each discipline has itsown methodology, i t became inappropriate to teach developmentadministrat ion through one discipl ine since solving administrat ive problemsrequires a know ledge of all the social science disciplines. Seco nd, underthis curric ulum , the importanc e of m aintainin g a practical rather thantheore tical perspective was stressed. T hi rd , the programm e p ut moreemphasis on recognizing public problems rather than on theories andabstraction. Since public problems have been considered the major focusof adm inistrators, program me management as a f ie ld of conc entration wastherefore introduced into the new M.P.A. program.This M.P.A. degree, with an emphasis on programme administrat ion,

52


8/15


has both merits as well as weaknesses. In terms of strength, thiscurriculum perceives the necessity for students to take courses with acontextual orientation. It also provides students with an interdisciplinaryoutlook. Another positive aspect is that it is an attempt to bridge the gapbetween theory and practice, to treat public administration as a focus ofstudy rather than as a disc ipline, as an applied social science rather thansocial science or a fie ld of po litica l science, as problem -oriented ratherthan a discipline-oriented f ield, and as applied research rather than pureresearch. It aims to produce graduates not on ly as staff but also as linepersonnel. Additionally, this curriculum provides students with what theyreally want to know. Most students who are preparing to becomeadministrators need answers to questions such as: "What are we going todo?", "What can be done?" and "How can we do it?" These questions canonly be answered when the study of public administration is orientedtoward applied social science.

Another strength of this curriculum is that it provides students withthe substantive knowledge which w ill become increasingly relevant as theyare promoted to the higher echelons of the bureaucracy when they willhave to ask relevant questions and to make sound decisions. In addition,the new curriculum also equips students with some of the tools andtechniques of management science. Graduates who work at the middle-management level or below would certainly need the techniques providedin the curriculum which include: organization design, personnel evaluation,personnel development, programme management and evaluation, andquantitative techniques. These techniques are intended as heuristic deviceto aid students in solving problems. In sum, this curriculum provides thenecessary knowledge requirements for new supervisors up to higherexecutives.

Although this curriculum has strengths, it also has defects in that itpays more attention to techniques than it does to purpose. It is in fact atrium ph of techniques over purpose. This m ight have been jus tified at atime when public administration was regarded as merely an instrument ofgovernment. Nowadays, however, it is an admitted fact that the publicadministrator does not simply implement goals and policies. He is also,above all, a policy-maker. Accordingly, he must rely on theories andconceptual schemes that will enable him to specify values and ask relevantquestions. The curriculum, however, provides very little in this respect.Another defect is that while the programme aims to produce qualifiedchange agents, there is a noticeable lack of development courses in thecurriculum. Students are taught how to collect, analyze, and interpretdata. They are not taught how to bring a developmental perspective tobear on their findings.

53


9/15


5. The Blending of all Trad itionsAfter this curr iculum had been implemented for six years, NIDAintroduced another new curr iculum. The aim of this new curr iculum wasto int roduce pu bl ic pol icy in to the "program me ad min is t rat io n"cu rric ulu m . This was perhaps due to the rise of p ub lic p olic y as a ma jorfield of study in public administration in the early seventies. The structureof th is curr iculu m was therefore the blending of publ ic po l icy, programmeadministrat ion, organizat ion and management science.

Aside from IMIDA, Thammasat University also offers an M.P.A.degree. The p rogram me at Tham masat is a par t-time program me w hereclasses are usually conducted after office hours and on Saturday. It has, infact, no major f ields. I t aims to provide students w ith a broad knowledgeof p ubl ic a dm inistrat ion . The fol lo win g are their core courses: researchdesign and techniques, f iscal administrat ion, seminar on comparat iveadministrat ion, and the scope and development of publ ic administrat ion. 1 6Moreover, students are required to take electives constituting from six tofifteen credits, and courses offered by the Faculty of Polit ical Sciencewhich account for another nine credits in l ieu of the thesis. A com-prehensive examination is required of all students. 17From the above de scr iptio n, it is evident that the M.P.A. programme atNIDA is a blending of al l t radi t ions: core offerings, publ ic pol icy,programme administrat ion, organizat ional behaviour, and managementscience. The progra mm e, however, treats pub lic ad m inistr atio n as anapplied social science and looks to the professional stance of medicalpractit ioners as a model for behaviour. Its f ields of specialization aim attra ini ng studen ts either as specialists or as line office rs in substantive areas.For instance, the programme recognizes the necessity of the developmentco nte xt and how it relates to the Thai bureaucrac y. Courses such as theThai social and po lit ica l system and the T hai e cono my provide a base forstudents to understand the development context. Secondly, the sub-f ield ofpubl ic pol icy and project management should help publ ic administrators inpractical aspects of development administration. The M.P.A. programme atThamm asat, on the other h and, is very loosely structured . The Tham masatprogramme does not even place particular emphasis on public administra-t i on , let alone development administrators. Furthermore, the programmeprovides very few courses dealing with the "nuts and bolts" of publicadminis t rat ion.The descript ion of the contemporary programme of publ icadm inistrat ion education at bo th N ID A and Thammasat indicates tha t theimp act of A m erican p ub lic ad m inistra tion sti l l prevails. The present stateof the art of Ame rican pub l ic adm inistrat ion ref lects the blending of three

54


10/15


11/15


environments with different structures and value orientations. It is notdifficult to visualize the problems and difficulties involved with thetransference of knowledge from the United States to Thailand. Thequestion that immediately follows is the utility and relevance of such anundertaking. Obviously, not all American public administration knowledgeand techniques can be transferred. To complicate this issue further, whatcould be transferred may not always be what is desirable or suitable forThailand.Let us pursue the point further and for the purpose of thisdiscussion, the substance of public administration education will bedivided into knowledge, tools, techniques, and technologies.Knowledge is inherently culture-bound. For instance, commonlyknown and used organization theories are largely based on an Americanenvironment of a post-industrial society. Data are mostly drawn from theAmerican business and industrial sectors which are largely not relevant tothe Thai developmental context. Thailand is still a peasant society. In spiteof modernization and urbanization in its capital city, Thailand's privatesector is relatively weak. Thus, it w ould be tru th fu l to state thatorganization patterned after the "humanistic" school would be meaninglessto the Thai bureaucracy because Thailand has emphasized the valueof"hierarchical status". Even the "decision-making" school might still proveto be inadequate when applied to the Thai administrative system becausethis school relies on the availability of data sources for effective operation.In Thailand, the system of data and statistical collec tion is still in itsnascent stage. Other factors are also significant in terms of thetransferab ility wh ich is promising in sectors tha t are technology intensive,but di ffic ul t if no t impossible in sectors that are people intensive, wherediffering cultures and values systems are the determinants of receptivityand adoption.20 Aside from organization theory, management principlesand process are also difficult to transfer. For instance, the concept ofuniversalism may not be entirely universalistic, as there are preconditions,socio-economic, cultural or otherwise, which inherently prevent allindividuals from having an equal opportunity to participate in theuniversalistic norms for recruitment and promotion. The problem ofcoordination and control in the United States might be different from thatof Thailand. Similarly, policy implementation in the United States isdissimilar to that of Thailand since commu nica tion, resources, and overallcontext are very different in the two settings. If Thailand needs publicadm inistration knowledge, careful atten tion has to be given to mod ifyingand selecting what ought to be transferred. As an example, my ownexperience tells me that classical organization theory which has been

56


12/15


characterized as sim plistic, undem ocratic, unsc ientific, is ironically useful in Thailand because the Thai bureaucracy with its authoritative valuesand hierarchical nature finds the classical theo ry applicable and mean ingful.While knowledge is difficult to transfer, tools and techniques or the"nuts and bolts" of public administration are, on the contrary, easier totransfer. Basic too ls such as statistics , records management, budgeting, andpersonnel administration have been transferred quite successfully both interms of teaching and training. Students and trainees usually find itworthwhile and rewarding to learn these techniques. Other advancedana lytica l tools and other pedagogical techniques for management are alsosuccessfully being transferred to public administration education andtraining in Thailand. Such tools are network analysis, operations research,linear programming, communication skills, computer technology, to namea few. The techniques men tioned include the case study, syndicates,role-playing, group dynamics, and so on.

Although tools and techniques can be transferred most readily acrossnational and cultural boundaries, there are however, several reservationsand considerations which have to be taken into account. First, tools whichare efficient in one culture may not have the same consequence in anotherculture. For instance, Organization Development (OD), which is popular inthe United States where the sociopolitical context is democratic, maybecome a useless or irrelevant instrument in Thailand where the politicalsystem is bureaucratic and hierarchical. Openness and confrontation ascrucial techniques of OD would be paralyzed in the Thai setting whereface-to-face co nfl ict is to be avoided at all costs. Social interactions inThailand have to be kept within the boundaries of pleasantness, harmony,and avoidance of co nfro nta tion just as Thai individuals are expected to becalm and cool-headed, which means avoiding the display of emotions.Another example would be the adoption of the system of positionclassification in Thailand. Among other problems this system confrontswhen transplanted to Thai social reality is the fact that the Thai personnelsystem is dominated by generalists rather than specialists.

Also, some tools and techniques are too sophisticated and costly interms of the requirements of available data, professional skills, and theresources of the country concerned. Systems analysis and cost-benefitanalysis, for instance, are irrelevant since the Tha i bureaucracy does no thave sufficient complexity to employ these techniques. Besides, a soph isti-cated information system does not exist to incorporate cost-benefitanalysis. Some tools and techniques are also "fads" in the sense that theymay gain instant popu larity and suffer just as quick a demise.Planning-programming-budgeting system (PPBS) which was very popular in

57


13/15


the United States in the early seventies and abandoned after one or twoyears was such a case in point. Ironically enough, many trainingprogrammes in Thailand still retain this topic. The foregoing discussion ofthe tran sferability of knowledge and tools and techniques is to show tha tAmerican pub lic administra tion is not universal and value-neutral as wasonce assumed by American technical assistance personnel and Thaischolars.Another problem of public administration education, which is relatedto the notions of universality and value neutrality, is a reification ofconcepts and techniques alien or inappropriate) to conditions o f Thailand .Thais tend to believe that Western or American public administration isimbued with unchallenged and unquestioned sophistication. This nationinhibits Thai scholars from venturing into .their own theory and modelconstruction . Instead, they tend to pattern the ir approach after the West,particularly from] the countries where they have studied. Many evenbelieve that American public administration is the dominant so,urce ofpublic administration, though this is an erroneous notion that underminespublic administration scholarship elsewhere in the world, Such attitudeshave led Thai public administration education to be a borrower and not aproducer. The above think ing ultim ate ly impMes that leality can beadjusted to fit existing knowledge when in fact it should be the other wayround.

The above analysis of the problems and difficulties concerningknowledge transference from an advanced country to a LDC inevitablypoints to a critica l conc lusion; public administration education, pro-grammes ought to be designed by one's own coun try . This issue has beenconsidered, .although not too seriously, by indigenous scholars of theLDCs, particu larly on the m erit o f designing a programme th at wi ll beconducive io the needs, values and context of the country in question. Iam strongly convinced that indigenous knowledge is vital and rrju^st besought. I am not suggesting, however, that we should embark on acampaign to disregard Western or American .public administration. To dothat would be an act of shortsightedness, if not'Sheer folly- Westernpublic adm inistration knowledge stems from almost a century's accumula-tion and is therefore be useful to Thailand, particularly when suchknowledge is selectively chosen, tested and verified against the Thaicontext.To develop and ultimate ly depend on indigenous knowledge in asystematic and organized manner requires painstaking effort and patience.In the beginning, we must have a good and clear knowledge of ourculture, values and beliefs before attempting to understand organizationalbehaviour in Thailand. Similarly, we must truly understand the existing

58


14/15


15/15

problems and prospects public administration education in thialand

Documents