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PSU is moving forwards to being “The University for the Benefit of Mankind”

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May this communication be direct to all PSU members, to our foreign employees, and to our students from abroad.

I also wish that our PSU members take this message to communicate with their foreign friends and partners.

This message is the our visionary PSU 2022 which Vice President Chatchai and our International Officers kindly translated for me to present in the 2nd Regional Conference on Educational Leadership and Management (RCELAM) 2011 held in Malaysia during 5-7 th July, 2011.

The Presentation read as:-

Theme: Beyond Globalization - Emerging Perspectives in Educational Leadership and Management

Title: University for the Benefit of Mankind

Honorable and distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen,

It’s my great honor to be invited as a keynote speaker in the 2nd Regional Conference on Educational Leadership and Management (RCELAM) 2011. I would like to sincerely thank the organizers, on behalf of Prince of Songkla University, for giving me an opportunity to share with you my experiences in Educational Leadership.

While I am quite familiar with the Thai Educational System, I have very little knowledge about the Malaysian System. I have however always been admiring the Malaysian Educational System, especially her higher education. During the past several years, I have witnessed efficient and effective changes of the Malaysian University Administration System with high motivation and inspiration. The result of such changes have been manifested in the QS World University Ranking, where four Malaysian universities are listed in the Top 400. This is commendably high number, as compared with the total number of universities in Malaysia. I do believe that, with such educational quality, Malaysian universities will soon be the leader in ASEAN Community, and stand out well in the International Community.

I come from Prince of Songkla University which is ranked about the 500th of the World Ranking, the 95th of Asia and the 5th of Thailand. You might have noticed that I do not feel very confident in making presentation in this conference when compared PSU Ranking to Malaysian University Ranking.

While my presentation certainly stay within the framework of the main theme of this conference which is “Beyond Globalization - Emerging Perspectives in Educational Leadership and Management”, it may not relate to any subthemes listed. But I contend that I would like to present to you about what I have been doing at Prince of Songkla University, because this is me, myself, and my expertise.

What I am going to share with you is about the search for the true meaning of university, or the true value of university. It’s like we are trying to search for the true meaning, or the true value of our lives. My presentation will lead to conclude that we, our university – Prince of Songkla University, will try to be the “University for the Benefit of Mankind”.

It is indeed necessary that all universities in all countries in this world must always be conscious in the direction they move forward, because all universities together must be the opinion leaders of their nations and our world. We cannot afford to lead our world into the wrong direction. We have to join hands to make our world better.

I and my colleagues at PSU have joined hands together last year in 2010 in order to search for the future of our university. Our target is PSU in the year 2022 we call it for short as “PSU 2022”, or in the next 11 years. This is not very far future, as compared with our university’s age of 44 years, or as compared to hundreds of years that our university will be in existence. Today, PSU is like a ship that is set off for a long journey in the ocean. We must know our destination. We must have an accurate compass, enough food supply and active manpower. Most important thing is we must implant spirit of goodwill and strong determination to our team. Only then we can cross the ocean and reach our destination.

To me, a good university leader must be able to lead the university to the true meaning and value, despite numerous obstacles, hardship and difficulties which many people do not even dare to think of it.

Allow me to spend a little time telling you about the brief history, the roots and the social status of our university, and the expectation of HRH Prince Mahidol of Songkla about the roles of universities. I will also share with you our awareness of nurturing this university and bringing it up to be the country’s highly admirable university that stay in people’s heart, and be a precious public treasure of the Thai Society.

For this initial plan, we set the goal to build our future in 2022.

We will begin with expressing our gratitude to our ancestors who established and developed our university to be one of the most prestigious universities in the Thailand. The ancestors built the past; the present generation builds the future. It is therefore our duty to join hands and build the future of Prince of Songkla University.

The social status of PSU that has been well established by our ancestors is as follows:

Today, PSU family comprises of 5 campuses, 30 faculties, 9 centers, 2 hospitals, and over 40 excellence and research centers.

    As some of you may know, there are about 200 universities in Thailand. Some of the following indicators can reflect our quality and tell you how we are positioned.
  • At Present, 49 % of lecturers hold doctorate degrees and about 200 more are pursuing their PhD study. We should soon have 70 % of all lecturers with doctorate degrees.
  • PSU is ranked 4th in Thailand for research publications in international journals, which reflects our capability to share of knowledge to humankind.
  • The top passing rate in Pharmacist Professional license examination in 2006 went to our Pharmaceutical Science graduates, though we were at the eighth of their choice when they took the university entrance exam.
  • We were ranked first in Thailand and the second in South East Asia by Webometrics
  • We scored 4.65 out of 5 from the national quality assessment administered by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment of Thailand - the highest among Thai State universities.
  • We are ranked the 5th in Thailand, the 95th in Asia, and about 500th in Asia by QS Ranking.

These are our social status.

Prince of Songkla University have the high prestige since our establishment.

His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej graciously named our university, “Prince of Songkla University” after his father’s name, HRH Prince Mahidol of Songkla. The name “Prince of Songkla University” has its origin from the royal title of the King’s Father, “Prince Mahidol of Songkla”. To the Thai people who love and worship our beloved King, everything that His Majesty the King cordially grants to us is considered great adoration. The name “Prince of Songkla University” is therefore our pride, our prestige that we will protect and extol for generations to come.

The search for PSU future must therefore be carefully made with care, keeping in mind our gratitude to His Majesty the King. Should PSU want to stand out at the hilltop as the highly respectable university, the question is what the true meaning of the highly respectable university is.

To imagine in search of our future, the future when we see PSU standing out at the hilltop . . .when we see our university filled with great value, pride, held in high esteem, and be highly respected by the Thai society as their precious public treasure; we will begin with the HRH Prince Mahidol of Songkla’s great aspiration which states that:

“Let consideration of personal gain take second place for the overall benefit of mankind. Prestige and wealth are natural rewards for a just and sincere dedication to work”

PSU is very fortunate that our ancestor chose to adopt this royal doctrine to be our spiritual motto.

Considering the benefit of mankind over and above personal gain is high level of spirit and soul. If that spirit and soul belong to human being, it will bring the owner to Brahman world; if they belong to the organization, it will position that organization to top level, with great value and high esteem.

PSU intends to be as such. We will try to be the university with a high level of spirit and soul. Our excellence and capability to stand out on the hilltop shall be based on such a high level of spirit and soul. We will proudly call that spirit—considering the benefit of mankind over and above personal gain—the Spirit of PSU. We rephrase that into a spiritual motto, “Our Soul is for the Benefit of Mankind”

To justify our strong support to HRH Prince Mahidol of Songkla’s aspiration, we consider another dimension public tax. Consideration of public tax will clarify public awareness and the university must be responsible to the well-being of the society.

All of us take part in the development of the country by paying taxes which contribute to the government budget. Every year, the government allocates the budget of 300 billion Baht of public tax for education; out of that, 70 billion Baht is earmarked for higher education; hoping that these university graduates will together play important roles in developing our country, dedicate themselves to strengthen the nation, for better quality of life to all Thais, as well as bringing them out of poverty.

PSU annually receives about 4 billion Baht from public tax. We are therefore a public property. The salary of all staff has been paid by the public tax, meaning all of us are the public personnel and all of our students are the public scholarships’ recipients. Should we want to be the precious treasures of our public, precious personnel and graduates, we have to follow HRH Prince Mahidol of Songhla’s doctrine that gives the first priority to benefit of mankind.

Let me cite the wisdom heritage of the great Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, the highly respectable Buddhist monk and great thinker of Thailand.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu described the current world educational system as “the education of the tailless dog”. The important missing part is the learning which would have improved the spiritual level or learning to be the human being. We focus more on an academic aspect and neglect the moral aspect; which make us more selfish. Today public morals have consequently deteriorated as a result of this kind of education.

In his book, “The perfect education is the circle that protects our world to the utmost,” Buddhadasa Bhikkhu gave us the great wisdom heritage, as follows:

There are plenty of cows’ footprints in the university.

Each cow’s footprint is the ocean of little tadpoles (toads). All fields of knowledge we teach seem to keep going round and round about interaction of entities in the world, including philosophy and logic. Therefore, each field of study represents only the single cow’s footprint of professors of the prestigious universities. This makes universities an assemblage of cows’ footprints, like paddy fields in winter. . . . This is not even comparable with the old monk who sits alone in the forest because he understands all about the supermundane—the knowledge beyond the world’s knowledge, the real ocean of knowledge.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu contended that we received only a half of education.

We offer only half of education because that is all we know. Besides, all people in the world appear to demand, and be satisfied with, only that. There is no supermundane education in this world, and it is difficult to develop one, because receivers cannot see the importance.

PSU should adopt the clear wisdom heritage given by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. He further preached:

    The right education is the only way for human beings to survive.
  • It is right because it can solve human beings’ problems correctly.
  • It must be the education that can reduce and control selfishness and ignorance (non-human beings’ conscience).
  • It must be the education that can control clever people which have been educated. It is impossible to use laws to control clever people because the clever people can always find legal loopholes.
  • It must be the education that adheres to the religion which emphasize on mind and spirit. They must not be separated, because religion is about people and their society.
  • It must be the education that serves the moral and peace, rather than blindly serving economics, politics, and military. In other words, it must be the education that enables religion to play important role in eradicate human being’s selfishness.

“Teacher” is the person who raises the spiritual status of human beings, releases them out from the cage of foolishness, lust and delusion.

“It is more and more difficult to find good teachers. Mostly found are just wagers who teach for salary. We are extremely difficult to find ideal teachers—one who can lift the spiritual status of human beings, one who respect in their ideology that they want to be regarded as highly respectable people.

UNESCO, which by its mandates is responsible for promoting education, society and culture of the humankind, has put a lot of effort in driving education, social science, natural science, culture, and communication to serve as instruments leading to the most desirable goal—developing mental peace in human society.

UNESCO urges higher education to be more responsible for society, and impose higher expectation from higher education. Today, we do not see education as only for teaching children and youths, but also expecting that higher education will help us alleviating poverty and starvation, as well as leading us along the pathway to peace and sustainable development.

Today, universities and higher education cannot only confine themselves to human resources development which is the conventional way we did in the past. In this globalization era, the development of intelligence and wisdom for our populations must be done together with broadened responsibility of sustainable development, the poverty alleviation, peace building, and human right promotion.

It is clear from the above that, should we want to be the university with great value, pride, held in high esteem, and be highly regarded precious public property of the Thai society, the only way to achieve that is to pursue the PSU Spirit which is “our soul is for the benefit of mankind”.

Let me give more examples to explain this.

If the university only focuses on producing excellent students who are well qualified academically, but those graduates are selfish and have no concerns for the well-being of the country and its people, they can even be dishonest and corrupt the country; then they are worthless graduates. The universities which produce such graduates are considered worthless universities. If we would like to be a prestige university, we must produce graduates with public mind.

PSU must be the university that produces and nurtures good students according the doctrine of HRH Prince Mahidol of Songhla. We teach our students to appreciate the spirit of placing the benefit of mankind over and above their own.

Let’s look at the value of a politician, for example. A politician who sees the people as just voters who cast their ballots, which can bring he or she to the parliament; then that politician is the worthless politician. On the contrary, the worthy politician is the one who prepares to serve people, helps them out from difficulties, brings them better quality of life.

We may compare the university with the politician. If the university receives an annual budget of about 4 billion Baht; and 1.7 billion Baht of that is spent on the staff salary. All of our staff must realize that our salary comes from people’s taxes—the sweat of their brow. We must be aware that we are indebted to Thai people, and therefore should dedicate ourselves to the prosperity of our people and our country. If the university is not prepared to do this, it is nothing more than an ordinary factory crunching out products.

Similarly, we can compare the above to the applied researches carried out in the university. If the university strongly supports its staff in conducting researches, produces a lot of publications, is rated at high rank, becomes a renowned university, employs numerous associate professors and professors, and nothing more. The researches may somehow benefit the community but not perfectly. Researches can be valuable only when they lead to innovation which can be shared with others, published and distributed as knowledge heritage to humankind. The true value of researches will only be realized when they are translated to well-being of humankind. The good applied research questions must therefore be developed based on true societal demand.

There are two distinct beliefs in administering universities. One believes that university invests a lot of money on discovering knowledge and producing graduates; it should therefore make profits from that knowledge. This belief leads to expensive business-oriented education nationwide, bringing fortune to teachers and universities. . . They simply translate knowledge to money.

Another believes that the university invests on discovering knowledge by financial support from people, it should share the knowledge to the people as well as their younger generations as knowledge heritage for advancement of humankind.

For example, universities in some countries charge expensive tuition fees for foreign students, while universities in Europe, such as France and Germany, charge very little, if not waive, tuition fees for their foreign students; based on the very belief that knowledge should be shared to for the benefit of humankind.

The values of these two groups of universities are totally different, like black and white, like the sky that is far higher than the earth.

In the free market economy, the universities must confront with pressures between the Education for Employment and Education for Education or Education for Alls.

The universities that believe in the Education for Employment will produce employable graduates dictated by market demand. On the other hand, those that believe in the Education for Education philosophy will continue to develop numerous bodies of knowledge, disseminate them to public-at-large who ever wish to learn. Their education is for the sake of humankind education. To me, the latter is the highly valuable and prestigious one.

At this point, all of you will clearly understand the precious aims of being a university—ones which will make the university highly dignified and elegant, and be highly regarded by the society as their precious public treasure. Being such a worthy university will benefit society, the world and all humankind, as does the sun to all human beings on our planet. Such a worthy university deserves to be praised as the University beyond University.

Prince of Songkla University thus adopts the royal statement of HRH Prince Mahidol of Songkla, “Let consideration of personal gain take second place for the overall benefit of mankind. Prestige and wealth are natural rewards for a just and sincere dedication to work” to be the university’s guiding principle.

Prince of Songkla University also declared PSU spiritual motto that “Our Soul is for the Benefit of Mankind”; at the same time built up spiritual ecosystem within the university that everyone can feel, and be surrounded by, this spirit and soul.

Finally, I would like to encourage all universities in the world to produce graduates who are capable not only for developing their own nations, but also for being the worthy global citizens.

It is the responsibility of our generation to hand over 2 important heritages to the next generation for their survival and sustainability. The first heritage is the knowledge which will enable them to continually search for new knowledge for their survival and improvement of their quality of life. The second heritage is the decent natural resources and environment for supporting their living and sustainability. Above all, it is also the commitment of each university to make younger generations the global citizens.

I would like to sincerely thank the organizer to give me this opportunity and thank the honorable audiences for your time listen to my presentation. Wish you all happy and success. Thank you once again and good bye. Sawasdee Krup. Salam Alaikum (Peace be upon you).

Boonsom Siribumrungsukha , President