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