Thai schools

Schools, Colleges and Universities in Thailand

If you are thinking of working in Thailand and have experience, a degree and a TEFL certificate it might be worth contacting several universities or colleges before you arrive. The best time to find work is during the long summer holiday ( March to May ), this is when most colleges & universities hire their staff. The second best time is during October, the month long Autumn break.

For the names and addresses of universities, private schools and, of course, language schools visit the Yellow Pages

Experienced teachers should consider teaching in an International school. They offer the ideal combination of high salaries, small classes and students who, in the majority of cases, want to learn.

A parents view of the pros and cons of the different types of schools in Thailand.

Failing that private Thai schools offer the chance of earning a higher than average wages but usually come with some drawbacks. I’ve written a little about my school, Assumption College and I’ve also been sent a very informative email from a teacher at Bangkok Christian College

For anyone interested in working outside Bangkok there's info on a good school to work for in Khon Kaen - Patanadek School.

More information about what to expect if you teach conversation classes in a private Thai school, read Mark's resignation letter

The salary at all government colleges and universities is the same 17,580 Baht + 8,000 Baht housing allowance. Extra money is paid for afternoon and evening classes. The number of hours you're expected to teach varies from place to place and semester to semester. My old college had anywhere between 12 hours and 22 hours per week. If you can land a job at one of the better universities then you will be able to arrange some very lucrative private classes with the rich kids. Unfortunately, at most of the state-run colleges & universities the students aren't from wealthy families.

Sex and money used to get better grades
University students sleep with their lecturers, pay them bribes and even throw parties in their honour, in order to improve their grades, a poll has revealed. The Suan Dusit Rajabhat Institute survey found that grade buying was common in private universities and colleges,and even found on Rajabhat and Rajamangala campuses, as well as in some state universities. Of the 900 students quizzed, 151 had witnessed grade buying. Lecturers were paid off to avoid doing reports, bought gifts or even provided with sex.
Bangkok Post

The exceptions are at Chulalongkorn, Thammasat and Mahidol Universities which are the longest established and most prestigious universities in Thailand. However, most of the rich kids go to private universities where it's easier to buy the degree of your choice. ( Motto : The best education money can can buy ! )

Why can't graduates from good universities speak English ?

I teach a girl who has just started a Bachelor degree course at Thammasat University. She studies 3 hours of English a week - out of a total of 15 hours study per week. She doesn't have a native speaker teaching her and the entire course revolves around reading and writing. Speaking isn't included on the curriculum at all! Having thumbed through her textbook it appears the goal of the course is to have students learn some very fancy words - malleable, disingenuous and proliferate were three big words I noticed. This, apparently, is the Thai idea of preparing students to be able to conduct conversations with farangs.

There are employment opportunities at state schools but these are not as numerous as those at state colleges and universities. Having said that many BMA ( Bangkok Metropolitan Authority ) schools have started to hire native speakers. The hiring is almost always done through a language school, ECC, Siam Computer and ELT have a lot of the contracts. Pay is OK and a work permit is included in the deal, but the working conditions aren't said to be up to much. More about language schools

For the complete listing of state schools which have their own website - and will therefore probably be happy to receive correspondence from foreigners visit the SchoolNet website. This is a government project to get as many Thai schools onto the web as possible. The listings are all in Thai but a lot of the schools have pages in English.

Compare : School v. College v. Language school

There’s also a list of the websites for various Thai colleges and universities . The majority are in or around Bangkok. Most of the information on these sites is in Thai but there will be contact details in English. Send them your resume before you arrive, you never know when vacancies will come up.

What’s life like at a Thai school, take a look at the review of Bangkok Christian College and the war of words over the goings on at Assumption College Primary, Bangkok.

Finally, one school's website you should definitely take a look at is Sriwattayapaknam school's.

There's over 1,000 pages in both English and Thai and it covers everything you could possibly want to know about life in a Thai school and Thailand in general. The vast majority of the work was done by the students and the site has received well deserved praise from all over the world. Check it out !

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