Low fees, cultural similarities and the variety of interesting courses on offer are bringing more and more Chinese students to Thailand each year.

The trend is welcomed by local universities, which are making preparations to accept even more students from the giant country.

Pavich Tongroach, secretary-general of the Education Ministry's Higher Education Commission, said the number of Chinese students at Thai universities had increased from about 1,000 four or five years ago to about 4,000 now, and the number is growing steadily.

He said the students could be divided into two groups: those taking full international courses, which take about four years; and those enrolled in Chinese universities who were sent here to take short-term classes, he said.

Among the full courses, the most popular are business administration, tourism, IT and the sciences, while the most sought-after shorter courses are Thai-language classes taken by students majoring in Thai at Chinese universities.

Pavich said Thai-language courses were popular in China because of the increasing number of Thai tourists visiting China each year, as well as growing business connections between the two countries.

The Higher Education Commission recently held an education fair in Sichuan province's Chengdu, in which 34 Thai state and private universities that offer courses to Chinese students took part. In Sichuan, up to 700,000 people apply for the province's 300,000 university places each year, Pavich said.

"So, many students go to study abroad in the US, Europe, as well as Thailand," he said.

Yutthana Suwannatarn, deputy director of the Registrar's Office at Assumption University (Abac), which has more students from China than any university in the country, said the number of students from China had increased an average of 15 per cent per year over the past 30 years.

"We aim to boost the rate of increase to 20 per cent in the future," he said. At the moment, the university has 850 Chinese students, Yutthana said.

The reasons for Thailand's popularity among Chinese students, he said, are the relatively low cost of living here compared to the US or Europe; the comparable standard of education (at least at Abac); the feeling of being safe; and the similar cultures of the two countries.

However - not surprisingly, perhaps - Chinese students at Abac do report having difficulties communicating with Thais outside the university campus.

Thanyarat Jivaketu, vice president for international and public relations at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said that in response to the influx of Chinese students, the university last year launched a project to admit 60 exchange students annually from Guangxi University to an eight-month "Thai Language for Business" course. The students follow their studies with two months of training at local companies affiliated with the university and at provincial chambers of commerce.

"More and more Chinese will come to Thailand as the Chinese population is huge," Thanyarat said. She was confident that with an increasing number of exhibitions introducing Thai universities in more provinces of China, many more Chinese would choose Thailand as the place to study.

"It's not just about education, but will also lead to a better economic relationship between the two countries," Thanyarat said.

Pavich of the Higher Education Commission said the most important thing Thai universities had to be concerned about was quality of education.

"Maybe one day we will become a centre of university education for foreign students," he said.

Chatrarat Kaewmorakot

The Nation