NSTDA and four partner organizations - Thailand Professional Qualification Institute (Public Organization), Electronic Transactions Development Agency, the Department of Women's Affairs and Family Development and the Government Savings Bank – recently launched a collaborative project to provide an e-commerce education and training to prepare Thai workforce to be digitally ready for working in the e-commerce era. The launch event was held on 9 October 2020 and presided over by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai.
E-commerce has gained popularity over the past few decades. Its growth has been exponentially accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic with governments worldwide shutting stores and implementing lockdowns to prevent the spread of the disease. As e-commerce now plays a vital role in people’s daily lives, businesses and entrepreneurs need to acquire skills in digital technology and e-commerce in order to stay competitive.
For over two decades, NSTDA has engaged in the IT capacity building program through the Information Technology Foundation under the Initiative of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. The foundation employs information technology in school curriculum to improve teaching and learning processes. The project has been implemented in 80 schools in Thailand’s rural areas. In 2016, the foundation initiated a new project to offer an e-commerce skill training to schools in the rural areas. These schools usually run a work program to provide vocational skill training to students and products resulted from the program are normally sold in school’s shop. The new project therefore helps the schools to expand their marketplace. To date, the training has been provided to 39 schools and expanded to 23 prisons, reaching 1.71 million THB in total sales on their online shops in 2019.
Under this partnership, in addition to providing e-commerce education and training, NSTDA will work with partner organizations to establish qualification and certification systems for e-commerce skill. The project will continue to implement the e-commerce skill training, focusing on underprivileged groups such as students in rural schools, prison inmates and juvenile offenders in 10 juvenile observation and protection centers.