Eastern Bloc countries and Africa have been
shown to engage in a variety of work, such as
modeling, real estate sales, and export of Thai
or neighboring product
s to their homeland.
Meanwhile Thai students may undertake
a more active role in a family business after
completing their core subjects as they, their
parents or siblings believe that additional time
is available for them to do so.
It should be noted that
foreign students
studying in Thailand on student visas are
forbidden to undertake paid employment by
Thai Law and if caught by immigration
officials will be fined and deported.
-
Advising Faculty Members
Faculty members within the Graduate
School of Business are not permitted to have
more than five student advisees at any given
time. This very sensible rule is intended to
ensure that each faculty member will have
sufficient time to assist and meet with eac
h
student advisee to ensure their steady progress
through the thesis process (Schlosser and
Gelso, 2001).
When students delay the thesis process,
they prevent their advisers from taking on
other students awaiting an adviser, which
effectively limits the a
dviser’s income stream.
So there is a tendency for some advisers to
flout the five advisee rule and take on more
than the permitted five advisees. In fact this is
treating the symptom not the cause of the
problem. So like blood
-
letting, the situation
gets
worse rather than better.
Advisers can
rationalize their actions by saying to
themselves, that the cause of their interrupted
income stream, lies with the student advisees
and not with themselves and so why should
they suffer financially, through no fault
of
their own. So they may surreptitiously take on
additional student advisees, which makes
managing the problem that much more
difficult for the program and university
administration.
This skirting of the rules, has subsequent
serious consequences to the
thesis process and
teaches neither the student advisee nor the
teacher
-
advisor, how to solve the problem.
Let us assume for the basis of this
discussion that when the student, who has
delayed progress of his/her thesis, later wishes
to continue it, the adv
iser has to pick
-
up where
he/she left off and re
-
engage with the student
and his/her thesis topic. By that time, the
adviser will have researched thesis topics with
other advisees and may have lost his/her own
motivation to continue with the recalcitrant
s
tudent. If the advisor drops the student it may
take some time for the advisee to find another
suitable and willing supervisor. If the adviser
continues on with his former advisee he/she
will have to dredge up the student’s earlier
work and re
-
engage with
the literature and the
student’s work which carries a substantial
burden of effort with it.
Students who delay completing their
thesis often do so up to the limit of the fifth
and final year in which they are permitted to
complete their thesis. The writer
was recently
assigned such a student who paid three and a
half years of maintenance fees and yet failed
to graduate because he succeeded only in
defending a thesis proposal within the five
year limit. The major reason why this student
ultimately failed was
that the student had two
full time jobs, as well as trying to complete the
TRM MBA degree thesis.
Advisers who have a number of tardy
thesis students in their care, in the meantime
might have taken on additional advisees. They
may be too busy either with
other thesis
students or with teaching additional classes to
follow up students who have delayed
completion of their thesis. As Schlosser and
Gelso (2001) have suggested, the Program
Director could follow up with these students
and either encouraged them t
o complete their
thesis or change to Plan A (non thesis option)
to finish and graduate within the five year
limit. In the author’s view, this approach can
be quite successful.
When advisees do not receive what they
perceive as adequate support from their
a
dvisers they will either “fade away” or resort
to using “ghost writers” to maintain adequate
progress. Neither of these situations is good in
the ethical and moral sense for the student, the
advisor or the Graduate school of business
(Markle, 1977).
-
The
Graduate School of Business
Part of the Quality Assurance Program
under both OHEC and ONESQA monitors and
tracks the progress of students in both Plan A
and Plan B and requires that the Graduate
School monitor and explain the time taken for
graduates to co
mplete their studies.
Students who take longer than the
prescribed 2 ½ years to complete their TRM
MBA, effectively penalize the Graduate
School
of
Business,
by
attracting
a
lower