On Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at Sutham Areekul Conference Room, Kasetsart Golden Jubilee Administration and Information Center Building, Kasetsart University, Dr. Chongrak Wachrinrat, Acting President of Kasetsart University, together with management team and personnel of the University jointly announced their commitment to manage and operate all tasks with integrity and transparency include anti-corruption in all forms. Adherence to good governance practices under the Statement of Intention on Moral and Transparency of the Kasetsart University’s Operation in accordance with improvement of operation to prepare for evaluation of the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (ONACC). In 2017, Kasetsart University passed the evaluation with 83.5 percent of a total score. This is a very high rate of morality and transparency performance.
According to the announcement on a policy for administration to promote the morality and transparency of Kasetsart University’s operation issued on 21 February 2017. Acting President of Kasetsart University encouraged all executives and staff to follow the management policy to promote the morality and transparency of Kasetsart University which consisting of 6 policies as follows:
- Transparency
- Responsibility
- Free from corruption
- Moral society of the institute
- Ethical working of the institute
- Internal good communication
Dr. Chongrak Wachrinrat, Acting President of Kasetsart University said that Kasetsart University has joined the Integrity and Transparency Assessment (ITA) of Thai government agencies. This project is Thai Cabinet resolution on the National Strategy for the Prevention and Suppression of Corruption, Phase 3 (B.E. 2560 – 2564), which began in the fiscal year B.E. 2560. All government agencies have to operate on the basis of virtue and transparency and participate in the assessment. This project were proposed by the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (ONACC) with regard to the prevention and suppression of corruption.
This is a 4 year-plan of action for Thai government agencies. Each government agency has to set a self-monitoring tool as an annual plan to improve operation of organization in accordance with the principles of good governance. There are tools to evaluate i.e.
- Evidence – Based Integrity and Transparency Assessment: EBIT
- Internal Integrity and Transparency Assessment (IIT)
- External Integrity and Transparency Assessment (EIT)
In 2017, Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC) announced the result that Kasetsart University passed the assessment with an overall 83.5 percent of rating score. This is a very high level of integrity and transparency operation. The lowest score of Indicator is Internal Integrity Culture with score 66.66 percent (the lowest sub-indicator of this category is Internal Prevention and Suppression of Corruption with score 48.08 percent).
In 2018, Kasetsart University has reflected and revised the appointment of a Committee on Integrity and Transparency Assessment of Kasetsart University B.E. 2561. Two meetings of the committee has been conducted to improve the University’s operation and get ready for assessment from the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (ONACC).
A meeting of Kasetsart University Administration Committee was conducted on 12 February 2018. The committee comprised of Acting Vice Presidents, Deans, Director of Institutes and Offices together joined signing ceremony to confirm that the executives and their sections will follow the announcement of the policy on management to promote the integrity and transparency of Kasetsart University administrators continuously so that Thai society can rest assure that Kasetsart University commits itself to operate on integrity and transparency basis. In addition, 28 February 2018 was marked as an important day that all parts of Kasetsart University together joined declaration of intent that Kasetsart University people will operate their tasks with integrity and transparency and resist all kinds of corruption. A symbol of anti-corruption were posed by Kasetsart’s personnel in photo taking session after the ceremony end and a seminar on ‘Rules and Procedures of Specification for Central Rates of Construction of Government Agencies for Transparency and Prevention of Conflict of Interests’ were run by a speaker from the Comptroller General’s Department (CGD), Ministry of Finance.