Assoc. Prof. Puwadon Bootrat, Vice President for Phuket Campus, presented the Phuket Campus Development Plan towards becoming an international campus, during the University Council’s meeting on May 21, 2016. PSU Phuket Campus is located in a strategic area with Phuket province being a world-renowned tourist destination. Following the government’s policy, Phuket is meant to be a Smart City, an economic and social digital city or a Digital Hub. It is one of the nine Super Clusters of the Thai government, which represents the collective strength of the future industry using high technology. This makes PSU Phuket Campus suitable to become an International-standard Campus, as one of Asia’s centers of hospitality services and tourism, with distinction in Thai and ASEAN languages and cultures, information technology, environmental and natural disasters management, strengths that also support community’s development. PSU Phuket Campus also aims to be an institution that produces quality graduates who participate in international networks and create valuable research focused on solving local problems to be applied into practice for further innovations.
PSU Phuket Campus is ready to become an international campus with international curriculum and outstanding teaching. The Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism, Faculty of Technology and Environment, Faculty of International Studies, Department of Computer Engineering, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Earth System Science and Andaman Natural Disaster Management (ESSAND), and International College of Arts and Sciences Phuket (ICASP) are located in this campus. Moreover, Phuket Campus provides facilities and other supporting agencies such as the International Affairs Centre (IAC) and dormitory for foreign staff and student.
The strategy to become an international campus is divided into four goals:
• To produce graduates of high-international value by developing students' knowledge and awareness on the importance of multiculturalism, and make students be part of the international community to develop a better and universal teaching management.
• To become an innovative university that produces quality international research and creates new knowledge, with future innovation and commercial development in the industrial sector. To create the graduates’ database to support the research university status.
• To develop the academic and supporting staff to reach international performance standards.
• To development both academic and physical facilities to reflect the internationalization and to broadcast and promote university’s reputation.
As an international campus, PSU Phuket will contribute to a quality of education equivalent to leading universities in the region. Graduates will have the language ability and the skills to succeed in the worldwide labor market, and the number of international students will increase as a result of reaching the internationalization goals.
The University Council has suggested that university should develop a policy to increase the international programs in all five PSU campuses. The development of Phuket Campus as an international campus should follow the quality assurance system EdPEx for development and use rebranding to support accomplishment of the target. Considering Phuket Campus’ location and resources, the programs should concentrate on the areas of tourism, natural resource and environment. In addition to teaching in English language, the campus should organize activities which encourage the use of English in everyday life. This is a way to also promote a faster development of the English language.
For PSU Phuket Campus to reach the standards of an international campus, it should comply with the development plan of Phuket province, coordinate and work in partnerships with both public and private agencies, and be involved in the progress of the Smart City of Phuket province following government’s policy. The campus should also have a center to educate the general public in Tourism Management, develop cooperative projects and seek research funding from external sources, as well as to organize academic conferences for exchanging knowledge with other countries.