Educating Your Kids In Thailand.

Brunty in four years my wife,children and I will be moving to Ubon. The location we choose to live in will be directly related to schools for the kids. I have concerns about education plans for the kids. Could you recommend/explain the educational opportunities available and costs from age 5 up to University available in Ubon. I will be retired and will not be able to afford International schools. Thanks Mike

I had a guy called Mike drop by the other day here on Isaan Style and left the above comment.

Schooling in Thailand can be as cheap as chips or very expensive at international schools.

Also the quality of education is often questioned, and for good reason. Each year when national test results come in for primary 3 and 6 and secondary 3 (year 9) and 12 (year 12) they tend to be pretty poor.

Let’s look at costs. Even the larger government schools in Ubon Ratchathani that are meant to offer a free education actually cost something. By the time you buy all the books, uniforms and everything else needed to send your child to school it would come to around 4,000 baht or $120 Australian dollars. Pretty cheap for an education.

Then the English programmes, they vary from 5,000 to 6,000 baht to study with Filipino and other non native speakers, and with native speakers you look at fees 15,000 to 30,000 per semester (2 per year) depending on the school.

International schools the fees are as you expect, big. One school in Bangkok it is 240,000 baht to register, or $8,000 Australian dollars. Annual fees of 40,000 baht or around $1,300 Aus dollars and then the tuition fees per year range from 410,000 ($12,600 Aus) for pre kindergarten to 740,000 ($22,000 Aus) for years 9 to 12.

So the range of costs like back home in Australia, can be near free and then out of the range for many.

International schools offer qualified teachers, people who taught in their own country with a degree in education in the field of teaching, these teachers earn huge money in Thai terms and it is even good when converted back into their own currency. 100,000 Thai baht plus at many schools per month salaries.

One guy I know gets 150,000 per month and also 5,000 per month towards living expenses, a return air ticket back home just to name a few perks.

Compared to an average foreign teacher’s wage of 30,000 Thai baht or $1,000 Australian dollars per month in nearly every other school across Thailand.

I have never said I am a qualified teacher, over the years I have worked hard to improve myself and even harder for the kids I teach, so they will get the best education I can possibly give them. But I do not have a degree in education. Does this matter?

I have always said it comes down to the teacher. How much the teacher is willing to put in for the kids? Over the 6 years I have been here I have met some great teachers and also absolute pieces of shit. And sadly many people talk about English teachers in Thailand in the latter.

If you Google about Thai education so many red lights come up. Poor report after poor report has been written about the Thai education system.

I have written about and complained about the lack of vigour I have seen in teaching young learners. I have complained many times about rote learning techniques used by teachers, teachers who believe writing a board full of text and then having the students copy this into their notebooks while they sit at the desk and correct work from another class.

I have complained about teachers, who give the answers to students. They tell the students that this is right and this is wrong. They do not try and elicit what students may already know on the subject being presented and taught.

This seems too hard, actually teaching, making students’ use creative thinking.

An example is a teacher in a young learners class holding up flashcards and telling students, “this is a dog, this is a cat” and so in is boring as hell.

I am very average at drawing, but I would try and my primary 1 students would often piss themselves laughing many times at drawings on the whiteboard.

I would start by drawing a tiny part of what I wanted to elicit, say the ear of the dog, and it would be funny to have a student guess and ask something like. Is it a rocket? Is it a car?

But it got the kids attention and made them use creative thinking.

In Thailand teaching seems to be mostly about singing songs, remembering speeches for competitions, practicing for ceremonies, going on excursion after excursion and education takes a back seat too many times.

Teachers are often preparing paperwork so they can achieve their promotion, or paperwork for the next visit from a government department, preparing paperwork for the next competition that is coming up soon and on it goes.

Until teachers in Thailand forget about all the smoke and mirrors that goes on in Thai the education system, things are never going to improve. Nearly every school on the outside looks amazing with massive billboards announcing awards won by students, but inside things are not so amazing.

All the falsifying of grades that happens all across Thailand needs to stop. I was told students must get 75%, nothing lower. This is a B + you can say. Students who cannot read, write, speak or listen are meant to achieve this grade, because the powers to be say.

This has to stop. I do not believe in failing your learners. But real grades need to be given. If a student gets 5%, they get 5%. The parents are told the problems their child is experiencing and then they can try to address them and actually help their child improve.

What I don’t understand is Thailand’s Ministry of Education (MOE), they know that schools fudge results. I mean all kids receive these very good grades but when they sit their national tests the scores are atrocious.

Last year, year 12 students averaged out of 100% just 14.99 for maths, 19.22 for English, 30.90 in science, 42.61 in Thai. The younger primary levels were not much better.

The MOE have to know that there is something not right, between the schools average grade point scores and what they achieve at national test level.

Don’t fail young kids, this could set them back. But give real assessments, real grades and make sure parents know the truth.

The schools have to stop stealing the kid’s education which is what I believe they are doing. They are failing the kids as their problems are not addressed, the parents often do not know their child has a problem, or needs help.

Until the Thai education system can stop the lying and smoke and mirror tricks, many kids will continue to suffer and struggle as they are pushed through year to year while their problems are not addressed and just get bigger and bigger.

I could not truthfully offer Mark the recommendation of a school in Ubon as being great. All the schools I know or have met teachers from have problems like I have stated above.

When Nong Ja is of school age I am adamant she is not going to be schooled in Thailand. But again it comes down to how much any kid wants to learn.

I have some absolutely amazing students, breaths of fresh air. They read English books, listen to English music, and watch English TV (mostly cartoons) and so forth.

I do believe that if a kid really wants to learn they will no matter their environment. If the teaching standard is poor, this will be a setback but with good attentive parents, kids can shine.

So Mike, I wish I could say that this school was amazing and so was that one, and I sure that there are schools likes this around Ubon and there are many scattered about the place, some have under one hundred students to others with thousands.

If anyone has a great school in the Ubon area then please let Mike know.

Brunty