Schools bid for foreign students

While foreign exchange students often travel to nearby countries such as India, Japan and Korea, Thailand is often overlooked. However, that may soon change as the Education Ministry has recently allocated a three billion baht budget promote Thailand as Southeast Asia’s education hub.

The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) are supporting the bid by adding 500 million baht of their own money to the project, which will be targeting foreigners working in neighbouring countries as well as is residents of neighbouring countries such as Laos who are on a high income.

Somkiat Chobphol is the deputy secretary general of the Obec. In a recent interview by The Nation he stated that:

“We hope to encourage foreign parents working in Thailand and neighbouring countries to let their children study in 14 pilot schools with international curriculum of Obec as well as Thai parents. We focus on educational quality as our key strategy to draw the target groups’ attention to further their studying in Thailand. We’re planning to improve the international curriculum of these schools to reach the international standard so that students having completed their secondary education here in Thailand will be able to further higher education aboard.”

These 14 schools are located all around Thailand including near Pattaya, which is currently working hard to promote itself as a family orientated destination.