Dulwich College's First Thailand Campus Settles Into Its Inaugural Term

Bangkok's international school market added another high-profile British name at the start of the 2026 academic year when Dulwich College International School Bangkok welcomed its first cohort of students in August. According to WhichSchoolAdvisor, the school is a partnership between Education in Motion (EiM), the Asia-based operator behind the wider Dulwich network, and Sakol Sathapat, a Thai property developer who provided the campus site.

In its opening year the school accepts pupils from Nursery through Year 7, with capacity for up to 1,000 students. A second phase of campus development, planned before the end of the decade, will extend the school to Year 13 and raise total capacity to 1,800, making it a full through-school from early years to pre-university.

Curriculum and fees

Dulwich Bangkok follows the English National Curriculum but adds immersive Thai and Mandarin instruction alongside the core programme. Annual tuition runs from THB 711,100 for younger year groups to THB 1,107,499 at senior level, equivalent to roughly USD 20,000 to USD 32,000. That places it below the very top of Bangkok's premium band but above mid-market operators, consistent with how EiM prices its other campuses in the region.

The school also launched a Pioneer Family Package for founding-year families, a common tool used by new campuses to secure early enrolment commitments. Details of the package have not been published, but scholarship pathways based on academic merit are listed alongside standard admissions routes.

A crowded launch year for Bangkok

The Bangkok school enters a market that has become considerably more competitive within a short window. At least four new British-brand schools launched in Thailand in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years: SPGS International School, Highgate School Thailand, Wycombe Abbey International School Bangkok, and now Dulwich. Each targets broadly the same pool of upper-income families, a mix of corporate and diplomatic expatriates and affluent local households who want English-language schooling with UK qualifications as the exit point.

EiM already operates Dulwich campuses in Singapore, Seoul, Suzhou, and two locations each in Shanghai and Beijing. Bangkok is the group's first Thai school, and the use of a local development partner reflects the strategy it has deployed in China, where land access and regulatory requirements made domestic partnerships necessary.

The retention question

The commercial challenge for any new entrant in Bangkok is holding families through the full school cycle. Several British schools that opened in Southeast Asia in recent years saw strong junior-level demand give way to attrition once parents began thinking about GCSE and A-Level pathways. Dulwich Bangkok's plan to build a senior school phase addresses that concern directly, though it will be several years before the provision is in place and families with children currently in Year 7 will have to make decisions before it is ready.

Whether demand in Bangkok is large enough to sustain five or more premium British brands simultaneously will take at least a full academic cycle to assess. The city has a substantial and growing base of both local affluent families and international assignees, but premium capacity has expanded faster than in most comparable Southeast Asian markets, and differentiation between new entrants remains limited.