Thailand Asks Whether International Schools Can Help Close the Learning Gap

Thailand's international school sector has grown from roughly 100 institutions in 2014 to more than 300 today, a pace of expansion that has sharpened a long-running debate about what, if anything, those schools owe the wider education system. According to The Nation Thailand, experts at a recent forum are calling for structured partnerships between international and public schools, including sister-school arrangements, shared laboratories, and student exchange schemes, as a way of directing private-sector resources toward the students who cannot afford international school fees.

The argument is not simply that expensive schools widen inequality, though critics make that case too. The more specific claim is that the particular strengths of Thailand's international sector, strong English instruction, student-centred teaching, and an emphasis on confident presentation and argumentation, map neatly onto the most persistent weaknesses of the public system. That alignment, participants argued, creates an opportunity for structured knowledge transfer that the sector has so far largely declined to pursue.

What the experts are proposing

Nisanart Dharmageisirattana, director of American School of Bangkok's Green Valley Campus, said a simple exchange programme "could go a long way towards narrowing what some people see as a gap." The proposals are relatively modest in scope: shared use of science labs and computer rooms outside school hours, short-term teacher exchanges, and joint extracurricular activities that bring students from both systems into genuine contact.

Dr Karndee Leopairote, a Democrat Party expert on education and technology, pushed for a more structural framing. "Do not set them up as two separate bubbles," she said. "They are part of Thai society." Officials from the Office of the Education Council noted that treating international schools as entirely distinct from the national system had become harder to justify as the sector grew past 300 institutions, with enrolment approaching 80,000 students.

A squeeze on the horizon

The debate arrives as the market faces its own pressures. Revenue is forecast at THB 95 billion for 2025, up from THB 85 billion the previous year, and enrolment recovered to nearly 78,000 students in 2024 after pandemic-era disruptions. But analysts have begun flagging a demographic squeeze: Thailand's birth rate has declined by roughly 4.5 percent annually since 2020, and the pool of school-age children is expected to shrink perceptibly within a decade.

As competition for students intensifies, some smaller operators are already under financial pressure. Policymakers may find themselves in a stronger negotiating position as the sector matures. Whether they use that leverage to push for deeper public engagement, or whether regulatory requirements remain light-touch, will shape the relationship between Thailand's two parallel school systems for a generation.