Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study and analyze the current status, obstacle and role of enhancing the strength of community by the college community, to analyze the synthetic concept and elements of enhancing the community strength by community colleges, in the country and abroad, and to present a model for enhancing the community strength by community colleges. The informants consisted of 51 people covering the community college founders in 2001, executives of the community colleges, village philosophers, and community leaders. The samples were 233 people who concerned the community colleges. The instrument used in this study consisted of a content analysis, interview and questionnaire. The data analysis was the content analysis and descriptive statistic such as Mean, Percentage and Standard Deviation. The findings were summarized as follows: 1. There were 20 community collages with the goal of providing education to meet the needs of the communities, served as the knowledge provider of the communities, taught the communities by the qualified persons within the communities and outside the communities for the purpose of community development, arranged teaching activities such as managed short-term training, provided the diploma education, and conducted research projects and academic services to meet the needs of the communities which consist two levels of management structures: policy and administer level and practical regulatory level. There were three groups of people in the community college system: the committee, permanent personals and special lecturers, which were aged between 50-59 years and all related groups have opinions about the current status of the enhancing the strength of the community college at the highest level; most personals were high academic qualifications but lack of sufficient knowledge and skills to do the research and academic service to develop communities, including knowledge, skill and experience in research and project management which caused the community college cannot expand the operations broadly and found the limitation of operations and encountered the obstacles in community services and training that rely on the networks both public and private sectors, if both public and private sectors do not understand or do not cooperate, they cannot be successfully implemented. The role of enhancing the community strength by community colleges had three characteristics as followed: (1) the character of the goals of the educational role of community colleges to enhance the strength of the community, including education for life, education for equality, education for professionals and education for sustainable development; (2) the character of the role of university's mission such as providing education to enhance the strength the community, researching to develop the potential of the community, providing the academic services that meet the needs of the community and preserving and descending the cultural heritage of the community for sustainability; and (3) the role of a model of the educational management of the community colleges such as providing the education for community development, education for professionals and education for diploma. 2. The compositions of enhancing the strength of communities by community colleges such as the common goal, the community learning, the participation of the community, the cooperation network, the community capacity, capital, geo-social and community management. 3. The models of enhancing the strength of communities by community colleges had the main structure as follows: (1) the principle, (2) the purpose, (3) the elements of enhancing the strength of the communities through community college, (4) the role of enhancing the strength of the communities through community college, (5) The operated principles such as be acquainted with – to comprehend – to be accessible – to develop, and (6) the conditions of success such as the conscious mind, juristic person, leader of change and continuous improvement.