Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing International Education here in Thailand. Specifically I am talking about this in the context of children of expats. I don't go into sort of the more practical aspects of being an expat in Thailand on this channel all that often but I thought it was warranted under the circumstances and I will get into that when I cite this article. But yeah, at the end of the day, International Education - and as a father myself I can tell you this from personal experience - all the savings that you get in all the other sectors of Thailand - the cost of living, the cost of food, energy, housing - seems to all come out in the wash when it comes to International Education, when it comes to paying for school for your children or child to go to a school that's on par with a school in a country that is primarily English language fluent, that's a big component of this. Because understand, frankly there's really nothing wrong with many Thai schools. They are actually quite good especially for things like stem and these things especially when you get up into the higher levels but they are primarily Thai centric. For this reason, you have to pay something of a premium to get an International school level of Education that's commensurate with perhaps the same type of curriculum back home if you will or in jurisdictions where for example, English is the first language, it's the mother tongue if you will. I also happen to know expats that send their children to school, for example Europeans where like French and/or German may be another one of the languages taught; Chinese has gotten increasingly popular; I remember when Japanese was quite popular but yeah International Education is a fundamental component of expat life, especially if you have a family. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Pattaya News, that is thepattayanews.com, the article is titled: Parents of students in Thailand's International Schools Face Increase in Educational Costs. Quoting directly: "A report has revealed that parents of students in Thailand's International Schools faced an increase in educational cost in 2024, spending a total of 2.75 billion Baht on learning materials uniforms and shoes, a rise of 1.9% from the previous year." 

Something to also think about, an issue that comes up rather frequently is can a foreign national obtain a Visa associated with their child undertaking school here in Thailand, going to school here in Thailand, enrolling in school here in Thailand. Can the child partake of a Visa? One thing to bear in mind with respect to children is depending on their age, they may or may not need to worry about overstay per Thai Law. We have done various videos in the past on that – I won't dig into that too much - but long story short yes, an ED Visa can be obtained even for children who attend school here in Thailand. There may also be the option of obtaining a Visa as a guardian of a foreign child attending a Thai school. Now that said, those Visas can be a little bit complex and as I have stated in many other videos, Education Visas themselves are a little bit tainted in the eyes of Thai Immigration especially if you are dealing with things like conversion and extension down the road. That being said, back to the topic at hand, yeah it looks like education costs are rising, a little bit less than 2%. That's compounded on top of again this is probably the largest expense I really deal with in my personal life. Again, it's one of the reasons people like to retire here. The cost of living is great, it's a good place to retire, it's safe. All of those things also operate with respect to those who have family here in Thailand but as I said, a lot of it does seem to come out in the wash if you will when you are talking about dealing with International Education for children here in the Kingdom of Thailand.