International cooperation in higher education: Effect on the employment trend of the AIT agricultural and food engineering division
2007
Uchida, K.(Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Tokyo) | Kitagawa, K.
The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is an international educational and research institute established in Thailand in order to provide advanced engineering education to students of developing countries in Asia. It has been managed and financially supported by various partners, especially by the governments of developed countries, and has a global reputation as an exemplary model of international cooperation in education. This paper investigated the present status of AIT graduates in order to elucidate the possible results of AIT's international cooperation in education. Personal data, such as the home countries, resident countries, and occupations of all graduates (907) of the Agriculture and Food Engineering (AFE) Division between 1977 and 1999, obtained from the AIT website in March 2006, were sorted and analyzed. The analysis of these data indicated that 35.9% (326) of AFE graduates had occupations related to higher education and 24.8% (225) had occupations related to government organizations and agencies. Additionally, 79.3% (719) of all graduates from 29 countries had returned to their home countries. These results are consistent with AIT's emphasis on 'the cultivation of human resources able to take leadership positions in the development of their respective home countries'. Furthermore, AIT's advantage in forward-looking, cooperative international education is considered to be the result of its constant efforts to maintain a high level of education and research, to engage in technology transfer, and to continually strengthen the network between developed and developing countries. More specifically, AIT has firmly maintained its strategy of emphasizing its 'hub function'.
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