Thailand must revamp its education system to ensure the country is ready for artificial intelligence (AI), according to the head of Kasikorn Business-Technology Group (KBTG), the technology arm of Kasikornbank (KBank).
The educational overhaul could be achieved by providing AI knowledge, training and tools to teachers and students, KBTG group chairman Ruangroj Poonpol told the Bangkok Post.
"Generative AI can empower learning by augmenting people, changing learning methods and reskilling learners," Mr Ruangroj said.
He said there are "4C" principles through which AI can collaborate with people to make them "super learners".
The 4C principles refer to "co-imagine", or encouraging students to imagine and dream through the use of AI, "co-exploring" by inspiring students to explore new possibilities through the use of AI, and "co-thinking" by educating students to use AI for developing their critical thinking skills. "Co-creating" refers to encouraging students to develop innovation through the use of AI.
The future of learning will be based on the "4P" concept, which refers to project, peers, passion and play, Mr Ruangroj added.
Mr Ruangroj said AI will be a companion for learners and an amplifier for teachers. More importantly, AI will help reduce the gap in terms of the teacher per student ratio.
In some cases, AI will be a teacher's assistant by helping them to design exams or provide an explanation to students in a computer programming class.
Mr Ruangroj suggests policymakers start revamping the educational system by training teachers to use AI tools to empower their teaching, create teaching content material and exams, and share the content in their teacher communities.
"We need to give top priority to teachers as they are closer to the students and will guide and advise the students to be more responsible in AI use and ethics. Teachers need to be the gatekeepers for students and the people to reskill and empower their students in the correct way," Mr Ruangroj said.
Moreover, AI will help teachers work 10 times faster and become "super teachers". Technology can help automate their handling of administrative documents, thus reducing their workload and give them more time to dedicate to teaching.
Mr Ruangroj said the new education minister should revamp the curriculum and the key performance index to be in line with future educational needs.
He added that the country should cultivate a culture of loving to learn from pre-school level.
Mr Ruangroj says the country should cultivate a culture of loving to learn from pre-school level.
KBTG is working with King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang by allowing technical engineering students to do internships with KBTG once they complete two years of their studies. This will give them the chance to solve real-world problems.
The company and the institute have also jointly developed a curriculum in robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things.
Mr Ruangroj added that KBTG, in tandem with MIT Media Lab, will propose the Thai AI-Augmented Literacy Guidelines to the public this month as recommendations on how to use AI for future learning.
They will also recommend the guidelines to the new education minister and Office of the Basic Education Commission.
Mr Ruangroj's advice on how to use AI for future learning starts with training teachers to use AI tools and making AI part of their science and maths teaching. It can be started in a sandbox for testing and evaluation before scaling.
In the future, the education system should allow intelligent students to skip a grade rather than having to learn in accordance with the regular timeframe, Mr Ruangroj added.
He said KBTG is developing a large language model for the Thai language by leveraging its own Thai National Language Processing system, which it uses in its call centre.
Mr Ruangroj said the government should consider providing related devices and smartphones to students to access the content and subject matter. This would reduce inequality and promote access to high-quality content.
He said the education ministry should allocate 1%, or 5 billion baht of its 500-billion-baht budget to fund the distribution of learning devices.
Moreover, the public sector should set up an online location such as a marketplace where teachers can access AI tools to support their teaching.
Teachers can be facilitators for students by co-exploring and customising content to each student for their own personalised learning.
"Teachers need to have AI literacy and English literacy as a priority. Moreover, parents need to participate in students' learning by using AI to monitor the log activities between AI and students in order to prevent the misuse of AI," Mr Ruangroj said.
He also suggests education technology startups adapt to become "AI-first" startups, otherwise they would be disrupted by AI.
