On 8 February 2020, Ambassador Pisanu Suvanajata of Thailand met with 30 Thai students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, under Thai Government scholarships and self-sponsored, studying at Warwick University, on the occasion that the Ambassador visited the University to give a speech at the Warwick ASEAN Conference 2020. Also present were Miss Vatcharaporn Ratanayanont, Minister (Education), and officers from the Royal Thai Embassy and the Office of Educational Affairs.

Ambassador Pisanu shared with the students Thailand’s national progress, particularly the development of the Eastern Economic Corridor, aimed at promoting advanced and high valued industries, as well as the planned development of high speed trains and new airport for which there will be demand for highly skilled manpower in relevant fields, such as railway track engineers and aerospace engineers. At the same time, technological disruption also posed challenges to the labour market, where required skills for jobs in the future would be in such fields as big data, robotics, AI and digital technology, as well as those relating to Bio, Circular and Green economy. Thus, the Ambassador gave career advice to the students to consider furthering their studies in these fields which would offer better job opportunities while they can use their knowledge to help advance the country.

The Ambassador also updated the students on the evolving structure of the Thai civil service, with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, established last year in order to better direct R&D in line with the government policy to promote Thailand as an innovation-led economy. The Ambassador also stressed the importance of social science and behavioural science subjects as the creators of innovations that help improve quality of life and living standard must understand human behaviours.