Local universities should collaborate with industries to meet rapid changes in the job market, Sompop Manarangsan, president of the Panyapiwat Institute of Management (PIM), a corporate university under the Charoen Phokphand Group, urged this week.
Thai universities move too slowly and cannot keep pace with the fast-changing job market and demand for various skills, he said.
"Universities need to better understand the demands of employers in order to produce job-ready graduates," said Mr Sompop, a former economics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University.
He suggested universities should establish a connection with various industries to understand the real demand from those doing the hiring, so they can work together to update curricula and co-develop and design new courses needed by industries.
He said many graduates are not equipped with enough up-to-date knowledge and lack hands-on skills as universities tend to bypass these.
"Students are still taught more theory than practice at university," Mr Sompop told the Bangkok Post on the sidelines of a seminar for students on the state of the job market.
"Those who land jobs often need to be retrained, which comes as an added cost for employers. We need to change that by focusing more on work-based learning," he said.
He said students should have access to apprenticeship programmes from their first year of university to help them better meet employers' expectations.
"Most university programmes only require students to do an apprenticeship in their last semester for three months, which is too late and not long enough to prepare them for the world of work," Mr Sompop said.
He said PIM, which organised the seminar, was aware of the problem and has demanded all of its students spend 40-50% of their time at university doing an internship, starting from their first year.
By adopting this approach, 100% of PIM graduates landed jobs within six months of graduating, he said.
"Tertiary institutions and businesses could both be doing more to help students be more employable when they finish studying," he said.
Mr Sompop said employers now expect extra skills like critical thinking, creativity, digital literacy and English literacy.