Schools & education in Thailand

Thai public school is free but Thai-language-only; nearly every expat family instead budgets for one of the country’s roughly 200-plus international schools.

Thai public school

Public education is free and technically open to any child with a resident parent’s documentation on file, but instruction is entirely in Thai, following the Thai national curriculum — a serious option only for families genuinely settling long-term or raising bilingual kids from an early age. A smaller number of "English Program" (EP) bilingual public and semi-private schools split the difference, teaching core subjects in English within the Thai system, at modest fees well below international-school tuition.

International schools

Bangkok alone hosts roughly 100 international schools; Phuket and Chiang Mai each have a meaningful cluster, and smaller options exist in Pattaya, Hua Hin, and other expat hubs. Curricula split mainly across British (IGCSE/A-Level), American, Australian, and International Baccalaureate (IB) systems. As of 2026, typical Bangkok tuition runs 518,700 THB/year, with the middle band (most schools) between 381,000 and 697,000 THB; the full market spans 73,250 THB at the budget end to 1,952,100 THB at the single most expensive school.

Fees also climb with age: Early Years averages around 419,500 THB, Primary 498,000 THB, Secondary 628,000 THB, and Sixth Form 736,300 THB. On top of tuition, many established schools charge a one-time enrollment or "debenture" fee (often 100,000–500,000 THB at the most sought-after campuses), plus bus, lunch, and uniform costs. Waitlists at the most reputable Bangkok schools can run a full year, so apply well ahead of a target start date.

University

Thailand’s leading public universities — Chulalongkorn, Mahidol, Thammasat — run English-language international programs at a fraction of Western cost, typically 150,000–300,000 THB/year, and increasingly market themselves as a regional study hub. A separate education visa (Non-ED), tied to enrollment and renewed alongside it, is itself a long-stay pathway some adults use independent of a degree goal — though it doesn’t authorize work and immigration scrutiny of language-school-only enrollments has increased.