THE POLICY FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THAI VOLUNTEER FORCES BY MOTIVATING TO BE MILITARY PERSONNELS

Abstract

The objectives of this research were: 1) to study the development policy of military volunteer system in Royal Thai Armed Forces to replace the drafted personnel, 2) to analyze the policy, model, opportunity, strength and weakness of
volunteer force policy and 3) to study the effects and to propose the development  qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative method was conducted by using in-depth interview on 22 high ranking officers in the Armed Forces as key informants and were specifically selected and a focus group of 20 officers in the drafting committee of the Armed Forces. The data were analyzed by using the content analysis to interpret, define and analyze the data. In the quantitative method, the questionnaires at 0.9163 level of confidence were used as the research tool to collect the data from the samples of 400 volunteer Army personnel, computed by Taro Yamane’s formula and selected by a multi-stage random sampling technique and samples of the Navy and Air Force of 100 personnel by an accidental random sampling technique. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics consisted of percentage, mean, and standard deviation.

The research findings were: 1) the Development Policy of military volunteer system in Thai Armed Forces could be made possible at the high level. The government must allocate the sufficient budget for the Armed Forces to create the
motivation for military volunteer project master plan, 2) The Royal Thai Armed Forces should provide the new regulations for the military volunteers to replace the former drafting system by informing the Ministry of Defense to set up this new policy. The strength point is the creation of the high possibility of success for the reason of having the willingness, well educated, high efficiency, strong, qualified, high disciplined, devoted persons and high national ideology. The Armed Forces will be qualified to perform their missions complied with the constitution perfectly. The weakness of this policy was that there were no clear policy sufficient budgets for processing volunteer force. There were also many military bills and regulations to be amended. 3) The effects on the policy of volunteer force should be studied in the long run and implied a good direction whenever to be practiced as it world enable a stronger Thai Armed Forces but it may be unfair for non military volunteer.

Therefore, there should be more studies and researches on the policy implementation to support The Army to set the new salary allowances for food welfare and other expenses. The administration for volunteer force must be applied
in the application for the men at the age of 18 years to follow international standard who were good and perfect in body and mind with good attitude to the Armed  Forces to be recruited follow by attending in service schools. Vocational training before dismission and after dismission should be concluded by 5 factors. 1) The entrance examination to various military three schools should be qualified by the volunteer force only. 2) The opportunities should be provided to the dismissed volunteer force the new jobs after 2 years in services. 3) They should be eligible to extend their services until the age of 25 years if they prefer in military occupation and want to serve nation, 4) The possibilities of recruitment should be conducted by Noncommission or Commission Officers according to their qualifications and 5) After the dismission they would be unemployed and would be rewarded at 30,000 baht or appropriately considered for initial preparation for their new vacations and the most significant responsibility for all to realize the need for development of volunteer force for The Army.