Thai Students get special Scholarship to study at AIT - fill in the available RTG scholarships and fellowships.

The 9th AIT-RTG Cooperation Plan covers 5 years for the period from 2010 to 2014 with a total budget of 653.21 million Baht. Under this Plan, although the budget for AIT in FY 2012 is 139.55 mB, only 61.32 mB was submitted for the approval of the Thai Parliament. Based on this reduced budget, the first installment of 13.40 mB was released to AIT on 24 January 2012. However OHEC informed that the remaining portion of 47.92 mB has been suspended as the budget was committed for AIT under the original Charter, but not for the new AIT under the new Charter declared by AIT since 30 January 2012. As you know, after a year of legal deadlock, AIT's Board of Trustees has resumed its function under the original charter on 12 December 2012. 

 

On 7 June 2013, Acting President accompanied by President of AITAA visited the Budget Bureau to seek their advice on how to reconcile and resume the 9th RTG-AIT Cooperation Plan. On the remaining budget of 47.92 mB, AIT was assured that this amount is specifically earmarked for AIT and will be released to AIT in due time. As for the use of this budget, the Budget Bureau advised that AIT should take this opportunity to change its practice. Instead of allocating the budget covering the entire period of scholarships that last beyond the budget year, the budget received for each fiscal year should be used up for that specific year. Thus the budget should cover (1) ongoing students and (2) newly admitted students in the same year. AIT agrees to follow the advice and will implement the budget accordingly.

 

On Monday 17 June 2013, Acting President accompanied by the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Professor Emeritus Dr. Sahas Banditkul, and Prof. Kanchana Kanchanasut, Acting Vice President for Resource Development, visited the Office of the Higher Education Commission,(OHEC) to discuss the issue on the RTG budget (see attached photo). AIT delegate led by its new Ex-Com Chair were warmly welcomed by OHEC Deputy Director-General Dr. Kamjorn Tatiyakawee.  Regarding the frozen budget of 2012, Dr Kamjorn confirmed that OHEC will release the 47.92 million Baht soon. In addition, as a token of appreciation to the leading role of Ex-Com Chair, a former Deputy Prime Minister, at AIT, OHEC will add to this frozen budget an additional 25 million Baht, which can be allocated as RTG Fellowships. Thus with the availability of this 72.95 million Baht to be used in one calendar year, we must now work harder to attract more number of applications to use the King's and Queen's Scholarships, GMS Scholarships and RTG Fellowships. Up to now, the number of qualified applicants in the stock is not enough to fill all the available full scholarships.

 

Without a direct-sale approach that we used in 2007, it is rather difficult to attract, at this late state, Thai students with GPA equal or higher than 3.5. If any field can get students of this caliber, we can guarantee that these students will be offered at least 48 credits. And for this year, students with GPA > 3.0 from first-tier ranked public universities (e.g. Chula, Mahidol, Chiang Mai, TU, KMUTT, KMITL, Kasetsart, Khon Kaen, Prince Songkla University) may be offered full scholarships, subjected to the approval of OHEC. 

 

So I would like to encourage all faculty members and staff to help approach top Thai students to apply to AIT in your field, even beyond the deadline of 15 June 2013. We will give a special consideration to the late applicants solicited by you. Let me know if you need any support from the Central Administration to go out and recruit such students.

 

Email sent to AIT's stakeholders by Acting Pres Worsak