Govt warned against cutting humanities at universities amid IT employability campaign

Assistant Professor Athapol Anunthavorasakul, who teaches at the Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education, said such a plan apparently focused on short-term gains but failed to take into account long-term investment in social development. 
“Do not forget that although graduates from some academic fields may not have readymade jobs awaiting them, their knowledge can be applied in various other jobs,” he said. 
Athapol said at first glance, philosophy and literature might not seem to have any market value. 
“But at a deeper level, such knowledge is crucial when society needs logical answers and debates,” he said. 
He pointed out that philosophy studies trained students in rational and analytical thinking.
He also argued that literature studies constituted cultural capital. 
“Look at the financial value that the famous Harry Potter books generated,” he said. 
Athapol was speaking in response to reports that Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha had instructed the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) to control academic fields that produced unemployed graduates and failed to respond to the labour market’s needs. 
The instruction was issued reportedly after the NESDB presented a plan to develop human resources in the country’s higher-education sector or university lecturers between 2018 and 2037. 
Athapol emphasised that the government could not just abandon the fields it believed did not respond to market demands. 
“Universities have the duty to create and accumulate wisdom and intellectual knowledge. They are not designed to only produce labour,” he said. 
Deputy Education Minister Dr Udom Kachintorn said the government did not plan to abandon the social sciences, but it had to prioritise the IT field for the time being.
“This is because we still lack adequate human resources in IT,” he explained.
However, he said the government could not force universities to focus just on IT fields. “But we will allocate funds to universities that actively respond to national goals first,” he said.