Print Research University Final-2

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Sirirat Nice Jittakajornkait

Mr. Abel Cadias
English 10 / 10:06
March 11, 2015
Why is Public University Better than Private University in Thailand?
Public university is better than private university because of tuition cost, reputation,
and admissions criteria. Comparing public and private university in Thailand is the purpose
of this research report. The importance of this report is to explain and illustrate by giving the
examples of advantages of public schools. In the same way, it gives some ideas for students
to make decision about which university they will attend in the future. The pieces of
information found in this research report are based on four references. First, an article
published by Learn.org entitled What are the advantages of attending public college?
Second, the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings presented the Asia top onehundred college including three Thai universities. Next, the study published by Unigang
entitled The tuition cost of public college is lower than private college as well as the
information entitled admission criteria from Kamphaengphet school.
The Differences between Private and Public Schools
There are a lot of reputable universities or colleges in Thailand which can be
classified into public and private universities. There are 142 private colleges and 76 public
colleges (Study in Thailand, 2014). A public school can also be either a pure public college or
autonomous college. Both types are funded by the government but the only difference is that
autonomous college is managed on their own whereas another is managed by the
government. The remarkable examples of autonomous college are Chiang Mai, Mahidol, and
Chulalongkorn Universities ; while Thammasat is an example of pure public university. An
illustration of such public college is Mahidol University. Mahidol University is an
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autonomous university that has gotten its named from the monarchy. Moreover, the
conferrees receive the diploma from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
Private school is a university or college that is operated by Association of private higher
education institutions of Thailand (APHEIT). The government has no role in management.
An example of private college is Bangkok College. Bangkok College was founded by Surat
Osathanugrah and it does not get any funding from the government. According to an article
published by Learn.org entitled What are the advantages of attending public college?, it
revealed that many Thai students choose public college over private college because of three
important reasons, namely tuition cost, accessibility, and admissions criteria. This article also
found that the public universities are more acceptable than private university (Learn.org,
2014)
Tuition cost
Tuition cost is also one of the main reasons for choosing university for Thai students
especially those who do not have much money. Tuition cost in Thai college composes of
registration fees, tuition fees, and other expenses. Equally important, most students spend
four to six years to graduate so they have to spend a lot of money to get a degree from
college. The study published by Unigang entitled The tuition cost of Thailand college,
showed that the tuition of public college is lower than private university. It revealed that
private university is more expensive than public university over tens times. It was found that
the tuition cost of public college is cheap and some people can afford it (Unigang, 2014). To
illustrate, Unigang researched on tuition fees for each university. Tuition fees of faculty of
dentist in Thammasat university is 50,000 Baht per year whereas tuition fees of the same
faculty in private university, namely Rangsit University is 352,000 Baht per year. To
elaborate, the reason why public university is cheaper than private university is because
government can support them. Moreover, some students might need to consider about the
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distance it takes from their houses. If they live quite far away, they might need to rent an
accommodation while they are studying at a university for at least four to six years.
Reputation
Some of Thai universities have considerable reputation. The quality of university can
easily be seen by looking at the number of successful graduated students which leads to the
popularity of university. More popularity means more students who make a desire to work
harder in order to be qualified and get accepted. Most of Thai parents also hope that their
children will get the best quality of university. Then again, the best top three universities in
Thailand are Mahidol, Chulalongkorn, and Kasetsart University respectively (University Web
Ranking, 2015). Those are very appealing universities that is the goal of many Thai students.
According to the research of The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings, only
three Thai universities ; King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT),
Mahidol University, and Chulalongkorn University (CU) are ranked among top one hundred
universities in Asia. The fifty-fifth, sixty-first, and eighty-second rankings are the ranks of
those three Thai universities mentioned above respectively. This research studied that Thai
university is not more inferior than other countries (Times Higher Education, 2014). From
this research, it found that all of the three universities that are being ranked in the top hundred
universities in Asia are autonomous university. Furthermore, some of parents want their
children to enter in public schools because by studying there, it guarantees that their children
will be successful in the future career and be the pride of the family. Most of companies in
Thailand usually select applicants by looking at the university that they graduated from. Most
of the students who graduated from famous university are likely to have more chance of
being chosen into the workplaces. Additionally, studying in public university is more
rigorous than private university in terms of curriculum.
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Admissions Criteria
The most important and difficult part of Thai students who want to study in a
university is admission criteria. The admission criteria are the one of factors that Thai
students are very concerned about. The difference of admission criteria between public and
private schools is strictness. To compare, public universities have more rules and more
admission requirements than private universities. Due to the intense academic competition in
public universities, some students have to try very hard to apply to public universities.
Another essential point is the number of students who desire to get in a particular public
university. Because public universities limited the number of students who are enthusiastic to
attend the colleges, students must have very high score to enroll in public universities. There
are two types of entering to public university that are clearing house and central admissions.
The clearing house or direct admission is the system that public or autonomous universities
can organize admission by themselves. It generally uses Gat-Pat, O-net, A-net, GPAX, and 7
cores examination as the main standard to qualify potential students. The second category of
admission system used by public universities is the central admission which is managed by
the Commission on Higher Education (CHE). It composes of Gat-Pat, O-net, and GPAX.
Public universities are using these criteria such as Chulalongkorn, Mahidol, Kasetsart, Chiang
Mai, and Silpakorn University. The example as can be seen in Thai university admission was
Chulalongkorn University which recruits its students from both the central admission system
and the direct admission system. However, private universities use their own criteria to select
students without any clearing house or central admissions such as Assumption University or
ABAC (Kamphaengphet School, 2015). Assumption University is using its specific criteria.
To be able to enroll in ABAC, students are required to have I.G.C.S.E./G.C.S.E./G.C.E that is
not lower than C at least 5 subjects and high-school diploma. This is because private
universities are independent from the government. For the results, public universities are
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harder to get in, and there are more admission criteria than private universities. Recently,
most of students have to take tutoring lessons and practice a lot of examination. Therefore,
students can be benefited from extra classes outside schools and gain more knowledge to
apply in nearly future.
Conclusion
The objective of this report was to find out why public schools are better than private
schools. By considering the benefits of public schools, it can be concluded that public
universities are more beneficial than private universities. I discovered that Thai education
systems support public universities more than private universities because public education is
under control of the government. Therefore, the high quality of education in public
universities can be guaranteed by the stable standard. In addition, they receive state subsidies
from the government, so students in public universities can get lower tuition cost and be
proud of themselves that they can attempt to enter in public university. This research report
recommends further studies on the advantages of studying in public universities.
References
Chulalongkorn University. Admission. (2014, December 6). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
http://www.chula.ac.th/en/admission
The Department of Homeland Security. What is a Private University? (2013, January 3).
Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/2013/01/what-is-a-public-university-what-is-aprivate-university
Oknation. Private University[in Thai]. (2010, July 21). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
http://www.oknation.net/blog/nn1234/2010/07/21/entry-2
Association of private higher education institutions of Thailand (APHEIT)[in Thai]. (2014,
October 30). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.apheit.org/2012-07-06-0216-26
The Differences between Private and Public Schools[in Thai].(2008,April1).Retrieved March
6, 2015, from http://thaimisc.pukpik.com/freewebboard/php/vreply.php?
user=hwn_webboard&topic=2252
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Rangsit University. Rangsit University[in Thai]. (October 2, 2014). Retrieved March 6, 2015,
from http://www2.rsu.ac.th/info/admissions-fee
4 International Colleges and Universities. (2013).Top Universities in Thailand 2015 Reviews
& Rankings. (2013). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.4icu.org/th/
Kamphaengphet School[in Thai]. (2014). Guidance for admissions and clearing house[in
Thai]. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
http://www.kp.ac.th/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=516:cle
aring-house-admissions-2557-2558&catid=12&Itemid=139

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