Bangkok, Thailand (Source: picswe.com) Bangkok (VNA) – The Thai cabinet hasapproved a budget worth 24.6 billion baht (about 809 million USD) to supportresearch and innovation to transition the country into a fully technology-basedsociety.
Thailand’s National Higher Education, Science,Research and Innovation Policy Council said the fund, drawn from the currentfiscal year budget, will finance projects to realise these goals, and it willbe used for developing manpower andinstitutions, undertaking research and creating innovations to solve majorproblems of the country and increase the nation’s competitiveness and reducesocial disparities.
The budget will also fund the launch of severalprojects to aid new forms of businesses such as community enterprises andstart-ups.
The council director Kittipong Promwong addedthat the government has a policy to produce quality researchers by increasinginvestment in tertiary institutions as well as scientific research andinnovations.
He said in the next three years, thegovernment plans to increase the number of university graduates in the STEM(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) faculties to 40 percent ofall graduates in a year, up from the current rate of 34 percent.
In the next five years, the government has setthe target of pushing up the proportion of STEM graduates to 50 percent, hesaid
It is estimated that there will be about 107,000positions on offer for people with STEM backgrounds within the next four years,including 34,000 in the digital industry./.
VNA
