Naresuan University, a public university in Phitsanulok province, northern Thailand, makes an interesting case study because it offers five degree programs in Southeast Asian studies. The university is fairly young, having been established as a separate university in 1990, and has an enrollment of about 20,000 students. The five Southeast Asian studies programs are as follows:
The Myanmar Studies Centre, which housed the BA Myanmar Studies program, was established in 2001 in the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty of Humanities to enable the university to become the academic hub in the upper-central region of Thailand and along its east-west corridor. The Centre was eventually dissolved, however, because of financial reasons, although the BA program continues to be offered by the department.
The program’s attractiveness hinges on Myanmar’s proximity to Thailand. Students of the program are advised that they can avail of exchange programs, short-term scholarships, or training in various partner institutions such as the Yangon University of Foreign Languages in Myanmar and government agencies in Thailand (Immigration Bureau, international airports, Thai Tourism Authority). Graduates of the program will have acquired the necessary language skills to work in Myanmar in any number of fields, from industry to business to public health, as a translator/interpreter, language specialist, logistics and distribution manager, flight attendant, broadcast journalist, sales executive, or tour manager. The curriculum of the BA Myanmar Studies program is dominated by the Myanmar language and language-related courses, such as Myanmar phonetics, conversation, syntax, reading, writing, translation, interpretation, and the social and cultural aspects of the Myanmar language. Other major courses (fewer in number than the language courses) are:
The undergraduate program has produced a decent number of graduates.
| Academic Year | Number of Graduates |
|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 20 |
| 2016–17 | 28 |
| 2020–21 | 30 |
| 2019–20 | 26 |
| 2018–19 | 27 |
Table 1. Number of BA Myanmar Studies Graduates, 2016-17 to 2020-21
There are currently five full-time lecturers teaching the program. Their researches understandably focus on the Burmese language (conversational Burmese, pronunciation guides), but some also deal with non-language topics such as Burmese workers in the Thai province of Ranong, the history of Burmese banknotes, and COVID-19 as a geopolitical actor in the border trade between Mae Hong Son province in Thailand and Kayah State of Myanmar. Two major problems affect the program. The first (“the most urgent and fatal constraint”) is the severely understaffed faculty. In addition to the usual functions of teaching and research, faculty members are required to undergo continuous training and bear the additional burden of administrative paperwork and other bureaucratic tasks. Demoralization has set in because no credit is given to work assigned outside of teaching and research. The administrative bureaucracy also hampers decision-making at the program level. No significant change or course of action can take effect, for example, without approval from on top (which is not actually uncommon in university life).
The second set of problems is external. The dissolution of the Centre of Myanmar Studies temporarily affected the status of the program, but the greater challenge comes from Chiang Mai University’s Myanmar Language and Culture program, which was established sixteen years after Naresuan put up its undergraduate program. Though its program is fairly new, Chiang Mai University poses significant competition because of its location, institutional capacity and reach. There is apprehension that enrollment in Naresuan’s undergraduate program will decline over time owing to competition from Chiang Mai. The other external concern stems from the political instability of Myanmar, which prevents Thai students from learning the Myanmar language and culture in the country itself and the opportunity for faculty to do fieldwork in Myanmar.
The program’s saving grace is the successful employment of its graduates. Companies approach the department in search of potential staff, hoping that some of the graduates will change their mind and work in these firms. During the Covid-19 pandemic, third- and fourth-year students helped Thai companies contact their infected Myanmar laborers. This advantage has kept the program going despite the difficulties discussed above. At the same time, the program hopes to enter into a a memorandum of understanding with the University of Yangon as a way to fend off competition from Chiang Mai University by attracting students to the Naresuan program. Also, one of the lecturers at Naresuan was recently sent to negotiate with the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry for cooperative exchange. It appears that the program’s strength rests on the language proficiency of its graduates. The faculty believe the graduates can readily compete with professional Myanmar translators trained by Chiang Mai University.
At the graduate level, Naresuan University offers two types of programs: Southeast Asian Studies and ASEAN Studies. The MA and PhD Southeast Asian Studies programs were established in the Department of History (Faculty of Social Sciences) in 2012. Notwithstanding their disciplinal location, both programs are interdisciplinary with lecturers coming from various social science departments. Along with the programs, the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies was also established to serve as a physical and digital platform for the papers and projects of lecturers and students. Five full-time lecturers work in the graduate Southeast Asian Studies programs.
In 2016 the Centre of ASEAN Community Studies was established along with the MA and PhD ASEAN Studies international programs. Two years later, however, the Centre was dissolved (like the earlier Centre of Myanmar Studies). That same year, the former president of the ASEAN Centre became the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and managed to hold on to the ASEAN Studies programs. To this day the Faculty of Social Sciences continue to teach the ASEAN Studies graduate programs through four full-time lecturers.
Two questions immediately come to mind: how different are the Southeast Asian and the ASEAN Studies programs, and will they not compete with each other? The two programs are not exactly the same as their respective curricula indicate. The Southeast Asian Studies program has a more historical and socio-cultural bent compared to the contemporary and policy orientation of the ASEAN Studies program. The research focus of the PhD Southeast Asian Studies program revolves around the following themes, for instance, as stated in the program website:
The PhD ASEAN Studies program, on the other hand, adopts a more organizational framework: that of three types of “capital” moved by forces intrinsic and external to the ASEAN and the region, namely:
| Course | MA SEAS | MA ASEAN Studies |
|---|---|---|
| Core |
|
|
| Elective |
|
|
Table 2. Courses in MA Southeast Asian Studies and MA ASEAN Studies
Source: Naresuan University, Master of Arts (Southeast Asian Studies) <https://web.archive.org/web/20250807103718/https://www.socsci.nu.ac.th/en/?page_id=1402>;
Master of Arts (ASEAN Studies) <https://web.archive.org/web/20250811040142/https://www.socsci.nu.ac.th/en/?page_id=1295> Accessed 29 November 2022.
| Course | PhD SEAS | PhD ASEAN Studies |
|---|---|---|
| Core |
|
|
| Elective |
|
|
Table 3. Courses in PhD Southeast Asian Studies and PhD ASEAN Studies
Source: Naresuan University, Doctor of Philosophy (Southeast Asian Studies) <https://web.archive.org/web/20240812035709/https://www.socsci.nu.ac.th/en/?page_id=1369>;
Doctor of Philosophy (ASEAN Studies) <https://web.archive.org/web/20250713180252/https://www.socsci.nu.ac.th/en/?page_id=1331>. Accessed 16 December 2022.
Although the programs have different thrusts, they appeal to the same student market and so potentially generate competition from within. The Southeast Asian Studies programs, being older, appear more viable, as seen from the number of graduates (Table 4, next page). In contrast, the MA ASEAN Studies program has had no new students in the last five years, and at the PhD level, none in the past three years. Although nine students have enrolled in the PhD ASEAN Studies program since 2016, three already dropped out. Low student enrollment is attributed, among others, to insufficient advertisement about the ASEAN Studies program (it being fairly new), and insufficient scholarships. But the overall concern is a lack of clarity about the program’s target group: Who are the intended students of the ASEAN Studies program? No doubt competition from the Southeast Asian Studies program is one reason for low student enrollment in the ASEAN Studies program.
| Academic Year | MA Southeast Asian Studies | MA ASEAN Studies | PhD Southeast Asian Studies | PhD ASEAN Studies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020–21 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019–20 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 2018–19 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| 2017–18 | 3 | 2 | ||
| 2016–17 | 1 | Opened 2016 | 0 | Opened 2016 |
Table 4. Number of Graduates, Southeast Asian and ASEAN Studies Programs, 2016-17 to 2020-21
Moreover, both the Southeast Asian and the ASEAN Studies programs suffer from inadequate library resources; similar programs in Bangkok have better libraries. Budgetary constraints are also a concern, and language training in other Southeast Asian languages could be enhanced. The employment potential of graduates of the Southeast Asian studies programs is an additional concern.
On the other hand, graduate theses and dissertations in the Southeast Asian Studies program hold promise. Most of them cover other Southeast Asian countries rather than just Thailand, especially when compared with faculty researches and publications, which still tend to focus on Thailand (though a good number deal with Thai border areas).
| Country | MA | PhD | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cambodia | 1 | 1 | |
| Indonesia | 3 | 3 | |
| Laos | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Myanmar | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Philippines | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Thailand | 7 | 5 | 12 |
| Thailand–Myanmar | 1 | 1 | |
| Thailand–Vietnam | 1 | 1 | |
| Vietnam | 4 | 4 | |
| TOTAL | 16 | 14 | 30 |
Table 5. Geographic Focus of Southeast Asian Studies Theses and Dissertations, 2016-2021