Event: Dialogue on the Future of Education at Siam University
Visiting Delegation: Students from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) and Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)
Host: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jomphong Mongkhonvanit, Vice President and Dean, Graduate School of Business, Siam University
Venue: Siam University, Bangkok
Category: News / Harvard Academic Exchange, Education Policy Dialogue & International Student Engagement
Overview
Siam University hosted an academic dialogue session titled “Future of Education”, welcoming a delegation of graduate students from two of Harvard University’s most distinguished professional schools: the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard Kennedy School / HKS) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).
The event, hosted by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jomphong Mongkhonvanit at Siam University’s Bangkok campus, brought one of the world’s most diverse and accomplished cohorts of future policymakers and education leaders directly into dialogue with Thailand’s education landscape — exploring through conversation, presentation, and Q&A how Thailand is navigating the challenges and opportunities of education reform, national development strategy, and the preparation of its citizens for the future of work.
A Two-Way Harvard Relationship
This visit to Siam University is the mirror image of a pattern that defines Dr. Jomphong’s engagement with Harvard: not simply a relationship in which Siam University sends its leader to Cambridge, but a genuine two-way exchange in which Harvard’s students and faculty also come to Bangkok.
Where Dr. Jomphong has delivered guest lectures to Harvard students and faculty — at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at Harvard Business School’s Microeconomics of Competitiveness Workshop — this visit reverses the direction: Harvard students came to Siam University, and it was Dr. Jomphong’s turn to host, introduce, and facilitate their encounter with Thailand’s education system and national strategic context.
This reciprocity is the hallmark of a genuine academic partnership, not a one-directional prestige engagement.
Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education: Who Are These Students?
Students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) are among the world’s most accomplished future policymakers, public sector leaders, and social entrepreneurs. HKS’s programmes — including the Master in Public Policy (MPP), the Master in Public Administration (MPA), and various executive programmes — attract students from every region of the world who are preparing for careers in government, international organisations, civil society, and the public interest sector. They come to Harvard with significant professional experience and leave with the analytical tools, networks, and exposure to global practice needed to lead at the highest levels of public policy.
Students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) — some of whom Dr. Jomphong has also engaged in Cambridge — are specialists in education research, policy, and practice. HGSE’s student body is similarly international and highly accomplished, with graduates going on to lead education systems, reform ministries, design curriculum, and conduct research that shapes global education policy.
Together, these two student communities represent precisely the kind of international audience that can benefit most from direct engagement with Thailand’s education experience — and whose perspectives can most enrich Thai institutions seeking to learn from global practice.
The Dialogue: Thailand’s 20-Year National Strategic Plan and the Future of Education
At the heart of Dr. Jomphong’s presentation to the visiting Harvard students — visible on the screen in the photograph — was Thailand’s 20-Year National Strategic Plan: the long-term national development framework that provides the overarching direction for Thailand’s policies across multiple sectors, including education, economic development, and human capital investment.
Presenting Thailand’s national strategic planning framework to future international policymakers is both an act of institutional hospitality and a substantive academic contribution. For Harvard students studying comparative education systems and public policy, understanding how a middle-income Asian country operationalises a 20-year strategic vision — and the challenges of making such long-term frameworks meaningful in practice — is precisely the kind of case study material that enriches policy analysis.
The discussion, conducted in a roundtable format with a diverse group of students from multiple national backgrounds, enabled the kind of comparative, dialogue-rich learning that neither a lecture nor a textbook can fully provide.
The Significance of Hosting Harvard Students in Bangkok
There is a particular institutional significance to the decision to host Harvard students at Siam University’s own campus — rather than, for instance, at a government building or international hotel venue. It places Siam University itself at the centre of the academic exchange, inviting Harvard’s future policymakers to see the university as a genuine peer institution and a credible centre of knowledge about Thailand’s education and development landscape.
The distinctive, energetic visual environment of Siam University — visible in the colourful geometric artwork of the venue walls — provides a memorable and authentic context for the visit, one that communicates the institution’s character as a creative, forward-looking university.
For Siam University’s own community — faculty, staff, and students — hosting Harvard delegations on campus is itself a powerful signal: that the institution’s intellectual life is internationally connected, that its leadership engages with the world’s best, and that global conversations about the future of education happen here.
Key Takeaways
- Siam University’s hosting of Harvard Kennedy School and HGSE students for a dialogue on the Future of Education demonstrates that the institution’s Harvard connection is genuinely two-way — Bangkok is not just a destination for Thai academics visiting Cambridge, but a destination that Harvard’s students visit to learn
- The presentation of Thailand’s 20-Year National Strategic Plan gave future international policymakers a grounded, practitioner-informed understanding of how Thailand frames and pursues its long-term development objectives
- The diverse, accomplished student cohort from HKS and HGSE — future ministers, officials, education reformers, and researchers from around the world — brings global comparative perspective into direct dialogue with Thai education and policy experience
- For Siam University’s community, hosting Harvard delegations on campus signals institutional standing, international connectivity, and the genuine relevance of the university’s academic work to global policy conversations
- The visit exemplifies what meaningful academic partnership between a Thai university and Harvard actually looks like: not simply prestige association, but substantive mutual learning across institutions, systems, and national contexts
Dialogue on the Future of Education at Siam University, Bangkok. Hosted by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jomphong Mongkhonvanit for visiting students from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) and Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).