Lifelong Learning and Information Technology in Thailand

Tipaporn Phimphisut
Thailand

Globalization has brought about rapid changes in all aspects of life-economic, social, political, and technological. Humankind is now facing a bewildering mixture of uncertainty, risk, insecurity, and yet opportunity. The rapid shifts can be seen in occupations and the demand for skills. The challenges of rapid change manifesto themselves in new technologies and patterns of communication. The country and its people must therefore learn how to meet and supervise those challeneges.
A culture of lifelong learning would be a resource in the midst of change, helping people both to cope with change and in their striving to shape it to their own devices as active citizens. It would equip oneself with skills, knowledge, information for lifelong improvement, and advantages. Lifelong learning can make a valuable contribution to the solution of problems.

The question this paper is asking are; 1) what kind of lifelong learning exist in Thailand?, 2) what is the role of information and communication technology in lifelong education?, and 3) what are the outcomes of lifelong education by using information and communication technology? The paper mainly focuses on lifelong learning at university and community levels.

The finding from a survey research by Ramkhamhaeng University in 2001 have shown that the local administrators want to turn their local communities to be learning centers for higher education. Distance learning by using advanced information technology has become a new choice for the local communities. This process should initiate new meanings of education. It should improve university relations with the community, balance between global awareness and local responsiveness, and serve the local needs to build up a firm economic foundation.

Many universities in Thailand are in the same direction, provide new choices of distance learning for local needs, and attempt to build a knowledge-based society at the grassroots with the philosophy of equity and quality in higher education. New information and communication technology, the main concern, is used to open up extraordinary prospects for learning and for the diversification of knowledge. It is hoped that universities will contributes to the people at the grassroots level and the society as a whole for sustainable development.

As knowledge is expanding, si is the need for lifelong learning, professional schools, universities extension courses, and online instruction as all providing responses to this growing need. Higher Education will expand outreach services in support of it as seen in the cases of Ramkhamheng University, Sukhothai Thammathirat University, and Rachapat Institutes. The universities have to define and redefine their own visions and selective focus. Education reform may be needed based on long term goals, purposes, and objectives. Also, the classroom may be changed. University leaders have to rethink new ways to share knowledge, exchange faculty members and students, forge new alliances, make productive collaboration, empty distance learning, and share teaching.

The rapid development of communication technologies including the internet has led to the evolution of distance learning. The cyber classroom system provides distance learning via the internet. Ramkhamhaeng University is developing an interactive on-line learning environment on the internet. Learning , therefore, does not take place only in the classroom, but can happen any time and anywhere. E-learning, a new learning method, is a computer-mediated learning environment through a so-called "Virtual Classroom"> However, the missions and values of lifelong education are not only to produce knowledge graduates , but also to educate for citizenship, active participation in society, capacity-building, and for interactive learning through action for community empwerment.