Office of Education Affairs, UK.

Preparing Pragmatic and Trustworthy Talent for the Thai Public Sector

OEA Greeting

Welcome to the Office of Educational Affairs (OEA). The OEA is an implementation arm of Thailand’s Office of the Civil Service Commission (OCSC), a central human resource management unit for Thailand’s public sector. Reporting directly to the Prime Minister, one of the major responsibilities of the OCSC is talent management through the government scholarship system. While the aspects of planning and selection of scholarship are managed by the OCSC in Thailand, the role of scholarship student supervision as well as oversea network creation in Europe are assigned to OEA.

This booklet aims to familiarize you with the roles and strategies of the OEA in developing pragmatic and trustworthy talents for the Thai public sector. This includes the information on the CSC, OCSC, OEA as well as a brief overview on the scholarship system. It also shows our activities to give you some ideas how we take care of our students.

Finally, as the OEA alone cannot accomplish this formidable task of talent development, we would like to express our deepest appreciation to all parties for your active involvement in co-creating valuable human resource for Thailand.

Thank you.

Dr. Piyawat SivaraksMinister (for Education)April 2012

OCSC BuildingThailand

Before 1928, the human resource management in the Thai civil service was based on the patronage system where such functions as selection, recruitment, and promotion were not systemized, leaving decisions on human resource at the disposal of supervisors .

In the reign of King Rama VII, the first Civil Service Act B.E. 2471 (1928) transformed the Thai civil service into the merit system that relies on rules of law as well as the principles of competence, merit, and fairness.

The civil service act has been amended from time to time to facilitate the civil service’s human resource management in a particular environment. The most recent change in the civil service human resource structure is the new Civil Service Act of 2008 which was enacted in January 2008 and fully came into effect in late January 2009 .

This Act has four underlying principles. The first principle deals with “Managing Work”  which is pointed out under section 34  of Civil Service Regulations. It states that “The organization of civil service officials shall be undertaken with a view to the result-based outcome, efficiency and good value in the discharge of State functions, and to make officials perform their duties with quality and virtue and have a good quality of life .”

The second principle is “Managing Self” as put under section 78 which deals with ethics, emphasizing that officials “exhibit honor and dignity,” “relentlessly insist on taking the correct action,” act with ”honesty and responsibility,” be “transparent and accountable performance of duties” without “;any unfair discrimination” and use “result-based determination” when making decisions. Section 78 also provides government with rule-making and implementation pursuant to technical principles and professional ethics.  “Managing People” is the third principle which lies within section 42 mentioning that the merit based principle is applied for recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, promotion, disciplinary action, and political impartiality.

The fourth principle is “Jurisdiction.” The Act covers the roles and responsibilities of all key stakeholders in the realm of civil service’s human resource management system including the cabinet, the Prime Minister, Ministers, the civil service commission and its sub-commission, government agencies’ executives (including the permanent secretary), and civil service officials.

Finally, the fifth principle of the Act is “Coverage” as it covers the management of all key human resource areas such as recruitment and selection, position classification, compensation, appointment and promotion, ethics, and discipline.

Thai Civil Service and The Civil Service Act

King Rama VII statue, OCSC Thailand