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Published on December 12, 2007

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, he argued the bill, now being considered by the National Legislative Assembly, would only lead the country's oldest university into a full business operation.

As CU executives push for the draft bill to come into effect during the NLA's term, Tul said he and the Prachakhom Chula would this week submit a letter to NLA chairman Meechai Ruchupan and Education Minister Wijit Srisa-an asking them to suspend the draft, pending the next government.

Expressing a belief that many NLA members disagreed with the bill, Tul said his group was caught by surprise by it.

"We found out when the agenda was already before the Cabinet. We learned there was a CU council resolution on October 26, 2006 to resubmit the draft bill back to the Cabinet, which then forwarded the matter to the NLA right away," he said.

"Mind you, this agenda was tabled at the university council within 16 days of the minister's appointment, so it shows that this was prepared in advance. Wijit was the mastermind of all this." The first attempt to get autonomy for CU was when the university council resolved to approve the draft bill on June 24, 1999, Tul recalled. But the Prachakhom Chula did not want it, leading to the submission of an appeal to HM the King, he said.

The Office of HM's Principal Private Secretary replied to the university council president on April 26, 2000 that teachers, administrators and students must be consulted before the draft came into effect, he added.

The reply was kept hidden for two months until someone asked for it, leading to accusations that the then university council president covered up the truth. The university thus conducted a public hearing, which was merely opinion expressing. CU President Khunying Suchada Kiranandana then announced the draft bill must be passed within this term, he said.

Asked what would happen if the bill came into effect, Tul said he was concerned about personnel because they were not civil servants and had no pensions. They had periodic work contracts with annual work assessments. "They say they will pay five to 10 times more in salary, but with less welfare because personnel can use the Social Security Office's services, so their parents, spouses or children are not taken care of here. It sounds good, but in reality the salary only increases by 1.7, with six vacation days a year [and no roll over]," he added.

The new staff worked efficiently but were forced to do research, and when they get the chance to further their studies abroad, who of them will come back to serve when they can be better off working at private hospitals. Tul said some junior staff members told him they would all be gone by the age of 45-50 as they would be unable to get a pension if they stayed.

The obvious disadvantage for the university was fierce competition from private institutes eyeing the best employees, he said. Since the work contracts would be renewed only when employees passed an assessment, there was no job security for them, he said.

The bill's Article 12 stipulated university work should not be under labour protection, social security and compensation laws, but the university would be protected and would benefit from these laws, he said. The employees would have no right to complain, file lawsuits or make demands.

The current work contract lasted one year for the first renewal, three years for the second renewal and five years for the third. "Under this kind of contract, who would dare to express opinions that contradict the university administrators or even the government?" he said, adding that passing the assessment criteria was up to the assessor's personal judgement.

He said teacher-student bonding would be diminished because university teaching did not just end at lectures but also involved discussions so students received both knowledge and ethics.

While admitting autonomy would make administration smoother because the university's income would not go to the Finance Ministry - so there would be clearer figures to work on and auditing would be done by the Auditor-General Office - Tul warned real effectiveness would be down to CU executives.

As CU had been a state university for 90 years and its medical school had achieved world-class recognition while under the state system, he urged executives to solve problems and tighten regulations rather than seek autonomy.

Tul said CU was different from other universities due to its assets granted by kings Rama V and VI.

He said it was wrong for the university to seek funds to support programmes that had not yet been discussed. He expressed concern that such assets, if not well administrated, might be used for certain groups' benefits.

Moreover, once the university became autonomous, the executives could use the university's land assets to invest in commercial enterprises because the draft legislation allowed this, he said.

The executives' comment that they would never sell the land was correct because the land belonged to the monarchy, he said, but they still could use the land in joint ventures with private companies.

Tul said he believed that, unlike other universities with no such assets to back them up, CU could stand on its own without educational businesses. If a business-oriented approach was adopted, the academic quality and freedom would be gone.

Tul said he believed the current executives had good intentions but there was no way to guarantee the intentions or credibility of future administrations. Besides, there was no one to cross-examine the executives except the university council, whose members were proposed by the previous executive, he said.

Education Minister Wijit Srisa-an had announced he would push for all universities to become autonomous before this government's term ended. So far Thaksin University, Burapha University, Mahidol University and King Mongkut's Institute of Technology North Bangkok had taken advantage of the autonomy bill. Three more institutes were soon expected to pass NLA approval: Chiang Mai University, Chulalongkorn University and King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Lad Krabang.

Chularat Saengpassa

 The Nation