The CELS is the Centre for Education and Labour Studies. It was founded by the Faculty of Education of Chiang Mai University and the French research institute IRD (Institut de Recherche sur le Développement). It was created in 2002 with the aim of building higher education research capacities serving teaching and learning activities as well economic and social development of Thailand. It has become since 2008 a young research laboratory associated to IRD (JEAI). Its fields of research are economic growth, labour and social issues, education development and quality. Its expertise is political economy, labour and work economics and sociology, sociology and economics of education, sciences of education.
Its major research findings and orientations are the following:
1) Economic growth has been underpinned on cheap labour that is on labour intensive, outdated technology. As skills are forged on the job, outdated technology does not contribute to the formation of modern skills. As a consequence, education can deal with other objectives than disseminating knowledge and can focus on citizenship and socialisation of the individual.
2) Recently after the 1997 crisis, the cost of labour has tended to increase, obliging entrepreneurs and policy-makers to foster labour productivity that is to shift toward more capital intensive technology. The formation of modern skills is going to take place on the job at the rhythm of technological improvement. As the formation of skills on the job is fuelled by the quality of cognitive skills delivered by the education system, the latter has to change its objectives and organisation.
3) The error of educational policy makers is to believe that technological skills are forged by education: from this belief they advocate a vocational logic of education able to follow (or even to precede) technological change. Thus, they are putting at risk an already defaulting educational logic (transmission of knowledge in order to forge cognitive skills).
4) Strengthening the educational logic can be understood as improving the quality of education that is the assurance that education develops the knowledge of students and their capacity to learn by themselves. As the sociology of the educational system and didactic are two major factors of this quality, the ongoing research focuses on these two dimensions through a participatory research method.
Its major research findings and orientations are the following:
1) Economic growth has been underpinned on cheap labour that is on labour intensive, outdated technology. As skills are forged on the job, outdated technology does not contribute to the formation of modern skills. As a consequence, education can deal with other objectives than disseminating knowledge and can focus on citizenship and socialisation of the individual.
2) Recently after the 1997 crisis, the cost of labour has tended to increase, obliging entrepreneurs and policy-makers to foster labour productivity that is to shift toward more capital intensive technology. The formation of modern skills is going to take place on the job at the rhythm of technological improvement. As the formation of skills on the job is fuelled by the quality of cognitive skills delivered by the education system, the latter has to change its objectives and organisation.
3) The error of educational policy makers is to believe that technological skills are forged by education: from this belief they advocate a vocational logic of education able to follow (or even to precede) technological change. Thus, they are putting at risk an already defaulting educational logic (transmission of knowledge in order to forge cognitive skills).
4) Strengthening the educational logic can be understood as improving the quality of education that is the assurance that education develops the knowledge of students and their capacity to learn by themselves. As the sociology of the educational system and didactic are two major factors of this quality, the ongoing research focuses on these two dimensions through a participatory research method.
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