About 15 per cent of the 2.3 million students graduating with high-school and university qualifications will be unable to secure employment over the next five years, according to an adviser to the National Economic and Social Development Board.

This is because schools and places of higher education are churning out people qualified in areas where there were few jobs.

But, there are too few qualified people in fields desperate for personnel, Panitharn Yarmwinij told an Education Council seminar at Nakhon Pathom yesterday.

Just 300,000 graduates will get to work in their chosen fields, 85,000 of those in top scientific and technological positions.

Panitharn said about two million students faced unemployment or working in lower-paying positions for which they were overqualified.

Yet, there would be as many as one million vacancies in fields such as textiles, rubber, tourism and production-based industries.

To end oversupply Panitharn said schools and universities should turn out more graduates with science- and mathematics-based degrees.

He suggested 65 per cent of graduates over the next three years should have that type of qualification. Currently, just 55 per cent of graduates had science- or mathematics-based qualifications.

These graduates could go on to work in biochemistry, pharmaceuticals, rubber processing, electronics and fashion.

The development board's 10th National Development Plan emphasised the King's sufficiency economic theory.

Panitharn said training students in fields vital to Thailand's prosperity was critical.

The economy was now resource-based - or one that produced low-value products that were resource intensive.

"The right economic system should be knowledge based, or one which produces quality products requiring low resource exploitation," Panitharn said.

Thailand was a resource-based economy because its workforce was less skilled than those in developed countries.

"Seventy per cent of the entire work force of 34 million possess lower than a grade-12 education.

"To switch the economy to a knowledge-based one, a lot of investment in human-resource development is needed," he said.

Students must improve their analytical thinking, creativity and improvisational skills, as well as their English and computer literacy, Panitharn said.