On 9 July 2010, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya presided over and witnessed the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding between Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA) and five leading Thai universities for educational cooperation projects between Thailand and Laos, at Vithes Samosorn, Foreign Ministry.
After the signing ceremony, Foreign Minister Kasit gave an address regarding Thailand’s education and technical cooperation with neighbouring countries that the Thai Foreign Ministry placed importance on implementing such cooperation and considered it as one of the Kingdom’s public diplomacy to strengthen relations with its neighbouring countries. He also mentioned the significant role of TICA and Thai universities in this mechanism. Thailand has been providing technical assistance to foreign friends under the United Nations’ framework and the ASEAN’s initiative to narrow the social and economic gap between the previous six and four new member countries.
The aforementioned cooperation aims to strengthen the bilateral cooperation between Thailand and Laos in the areas of education and academic. In this regard, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry and five Thai leading universities namely Chiangmai University, Ubon Ratchathani University, Burapha University, Khon Kaen University, and Kasetsart University, have joined hands together to draw the Country Program for Education in providing relevant supports to Laos. The programme was tailored as 3-year term using 160 millions baht and having 9 projects under the same umbrella to promote social and human resource development, including education, agriculture, public health and vocational education.
Apart from such cooperation, TICA which is an office under the Foreign Ministry, offers more than 200 scholarships each year for personnel from Thailand’s neighbouring countries to study and train in the Kingdom. These scholarships help in promoting Thailand as an education hub, in accordance with the national policy in placing importance on development of neighbouring countries’ human resources.
For further information, please contact the Press Division, Department of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tel.02-6435170, Fax.02-6435169, E-mail: div0704@mfa.go.th