In September, I wrote the long and unusual story of how I had become the subject of an arrest warrant in Thailand. At its heart was a dissertation on organic asparagus.
The story began in 2009, when I was working as an investigative reporter for the Bangkok Post and was asked to look into allegations that Supachai Lorlowhakarn, the director of the National Innovation Agency—and as such Thailand’s steward of intellectual property—had plagiarized much of this dissertation. He had, it turned out—all but 16 of 141 pages.
I reported this quite evident and ascertainable truth, and for it, in a slow but stupifying series of events, was charged with criminal defamation, jailed, and barred from leaving Thailand. The Bangkok Post was not particularly good to me during all this, and in July 2010, I jumped bail and fled Thailand.
When I left and when I wrote my story for CJR, Lorlowhakarn still had his PhD. I had come to think, because that’s just the way that Thailand works, he always would. And so I was surprised to learn last week, that at last, the man’s PhD had been revoked after Chulalongkorn University found that disseration had been substandard and violated acaedmic ethics.
Bloggers suspect the university’s sudden decision was spurred by the fresh and unflattering press the case received in a recent British Times Higher Education story. The PhD revocation was widely reported in the Thai press, and even made some front pages.
The development doesn’t completely resolve matters—the initial whistleblower and one of the authors plagiarized, Wyn Ellis still has outstanding legal cases (I assume I do too)—but Supachai being stripped of his PhD should certainly make those battles easier. And it’s progress, even if late and long-in-coming, for Thailand and the integrity of its acadmic institutions.
Amazingly, Supachai Lorlowhakarn, having now been publicly stripped of his fraudulent Ph.D by Chula, is still the Head of the Thailand government's National Innovation Agency whose Board Chairman publicly stated after the revocation of Supachai's Ph.D that Supachai will continue as the Head of NIA.
So many mediocre people in so many positions of authority in royalist anti-meritocratic Thailand, it is no wonder that Thailand is constantly mired in muck and so dependent on its gigantic sex, drugs and trafficking industries to maintain its "prosperity".
#1 Posted by Robert, CJR on Tue 26 Jun 2012 at 12:40 AM
This is merely the tip of the iceberg in Thailand where corruption and low moral standards are the norm. I am a freelancer who writes about Thai education issues for a newspaper, and I have experienced the above first hand. Only recently it was discovered that several thousand people were involved in a scam to take and pass the police entrance exams which guarantee government jobs with all the benefits of free health care for yourself and family and cheap government loans and a pension.
It's well known that senior positions in both the public and private sectors are not awarded on merit or qualifications or experience. Rather they are bought and sold like most marketable commodities. Unsurprisingly, when someone has paid to get into a high position, the first thing they want to do is recover their expenses. This is also what happens with politicians in Thailand. They see it not as a career move, but as a business deal where they make an outlay (bribe) which will yield long term benefits. No wonder Thailand is so far behind other so-called democracies. This is unlikely to change any time soon.
#2 Posted by Tom Tuohy, CJR on Tue 26 Jun 2012 at 02:47 AM