The Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT) has apologised to thousands of students trying to apply to universities in the third round of the new Thai university Central Admission System (TCAS) after its web portal went offline for several hours last week due to a technical issue, saying the problem has now been fixed.
The web portal run by CUPT crashed on May 9, the opening day of the third round, causing many students to fume about the unstable system.
CUPT chairman Suchatvee Suwansawat said the web portal crashed because more than 50,000 users were trying to access the system at the same time. The system started to buckle under the pressure and in the end stopped taking new arrivals.
However, the CUPT has since resolved the issue by tripling the capacity of the system and increasing the number of servers from four to 12 to match the traffic flow, he said.
A team of IT experts have also been hired to monitor the problem around the clock.
The CUPT also postponed the deadline of the application process from Monday to Saturday.
"We are extremely sorry for any inconvenience, but we have identified and fixed the issue and our site is now up and running. We hope parents and students will understand because this is the first year that the new university admissions system is being introduced, so there might be some mistakes that we need to learn from," he said.
Mr Suchatvee said two committees have been set up to prevent any recurrence.
The first will work on upgrading the IT system, while the second will focus on how to improve the TCAS in the long run.
Under the TCAS, high school students are granted five rounds to compete for university places.
So far, 125,000 students have confirmed their placements in this year's first and second rounds, and more than 150,000 have applied in the third round, according to the CUPT.
The first round operates on a quota basis whereby students' records, or "portfolios", are considered by universities as the main criteria for admittance, with no written exam.
The second round also uses a quota system for gifted students, where the universities also have written tests in their selection process.
The third is called the "joint direct admission" system in which students have to sit central exams organised by the National Institute of Educational Testing Service. Candidates are allowed to choose up to four departments.
The fourth is a "general admission" system. The tests are similar to the previous admission system where students are again allowed up to four department choices. The last round is called "independent direct admission" and it allows universities to use their own criteria to admit students.
