Authorities raided an unlicensed international school in Bangkok's Prawet district, arresting 10 foreign teachers and staff lacking work permits, impacting the education of over 100 students. The operation, conducted by the Immigration Bureau and Prawet police, unveiled the school’s non-compliance with legal registration requirements. This crackdown follows tips about unauthorized operations and illegal employment of foreign workers.

Get today's headlines by email

The school had been functioning without a license for over a year, providing kindergarten and primary education. The arrested individuals hailed from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria, and were operating without necessary permits, leading to their detention by Prawet police. This incident raises significant concerns regarding the legality and stability of such unauthorized institutions.

Pol Maj Gen Prasart Khemmaprasit underscored the potential negative impact on students if such schools are shut down abruptly. He emphasized the importance of parental diligence in verifying school registrations with the Ministry of Education to avoid disruptions in their children's schooling. The situation highlights the crucial need for compliance with legal employment parameters for foreign nationals.

Looking forward, the authorities are urging the public to report any instances of illegal employment involving foreign workers. Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Join the discussion?

Already a member?

  Adapted by ASEAN Now · Bangkok Post · 02 Apr 2026

View full article

Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

3 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

Please read more......

This story really exposes a long‑running structural problem in Thailand’s “international school” sector, and it’s not just about one unlicensed school getting raided. It’s about an entire business model built on cutting corners while parents foot the bill.

The national obsession with having “foreign teachers” has created a market where school owners can slap the word international on the gate, hire the cheapest passport‑holders they can find, and charge premium fees to parents who assume they’re buying quality.

The origins of the teachers arrested here aren’t the issue, the issue is that many schools deliberately recruit from countries where salaries are lower because it keeps their costs down. It’s a cost‑saving strategy dressed up as “global education".

Meanwhile, parents are paying international‑school prices for what often amounts to a budget operation with no accreditation, no oversight, and no real commitment to educational standards. The result is predictable: underqualified teachers, inconsistent curricula, and kids who end up being the ones who pay the real price.

Thailand has some excellent, fully accredited international schools but they’re the minority. The rest operate in a grey zone where the priority is profit, not pedagogy. As long as the system allows anyone with a building and a few foreign staff to market themselves as an “international school”, this cycle will continue.

This raid isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a much bigger problem that regulators have been slow to address. Until there’s stricter enforcement, transparent accreditation, and real consequences for schools that misrepresent themselves, parents will keep getting overcharged, and students will keep getting shortchanged.

9 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

Sounds like someone doesn't like it when Indians get detention centers, but if it happened to Eurotrash foreigners they'd be gleefully crowing about it.

7 hours ago, Jim Waldron said:

The national obsession with having “foreign teachers”

During PM/Gen. Prayut's tenure the obsession was just the opposite. As I recall he believed that foreign teachers especially in English language would "leak" their culture into Thai students and denigrate traditional Thai culture with foreign "concepts" (like democracy?).

As such he instituted a "Teach the Teacher" program wherein all foreign English teachers would be replaced with and instructed by Thai English teachers by enhancing Thai English teachers command of the English language through a contract with a British company (go figure). The result is Thailand fell further behind in English comprehension.

The national obsession has been and seems to continue to be xenophobia.

This is a simple case of an international school operating outside the law by not being licensed and therefore its teachers not having work permits. Nothing xenophobic or culturally sensitive. I welcome the police arresting teachers who are illegally working as it is likely they are not probably properly background checked and will not probably be sufficiently qualified to get a work permit.

8 hours ago, Jim Waldron said:

This story really exposes a long‑running structural problem in Thailand’s “international school” sector, and it’s not just about one unlicensed school getting raided. It’s about an entire business model built on cutting corners while parents foot the bill.

The national obsession with having “foreign teachers” has created a market where school owners can slap the word international on the gate, hire the cheapest passport‑holders they can find, and charge premium fees to parents who assume they’re buying quality.

The origins of the teachers arrested here aren’t the issue, the issue is that many schools deliberately recruit from countries where salaries are lower because it keeps their costs down. It’s a cost‑saving strategy dressed up as “global education".

Meanwhile, parents are paying international‑school prices for what often amounts to a budget operation with no accreditation, no oversight, and no real commitment to educational standards. The result is predictable: underqualified teachers, inconsistent curricula, and kids who end up being the ones who pay the real price.

Thailand has some excellent, fully accredited international schools but they’re the minority. The rest operate in a grey zone where the priority is profit, not pedagogy. As long as the system allows anyone with a building and a few foreign staff to market themselves as an “international school”, this cycle will continue.

This raid isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a much bigger problem that regulators have been slow to address. Until there’s stricter enforcement, transparent accreditation, and real consequences for schools that misrepresent themselves, parents will keep getting overcharged, and students will keep getting shortchanged.

Yes a big problem that could waste a lot of someone's money for nothing. When we began looking for a quality international school in CM, the first thing I checked was the accreditation as a newly opened school won't have that as soon as they open. There are enough older accredited international schools so then the next question is the colleges (local and foreign) that graduating students are accepted. I always meet with the teachers and now have two daughters that have graduated from international schools, not only in CM and Bangkok but in several other countries too. Based on their college educations and careers, both proved that the international schools they attended provided a quality education for them to move forward in their desired careers.

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria: I am trying to imagine the "English" accents the children would be proudly showing off to their parents....

Sounds like a quality learing center.

16 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

Congratulations! In every online thread, there is always a special prize for the person who goes from "Cookie Recipe to Hitler" the fastest. You got there on the First Post! Well done! Well done indeed!

19 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The arrested individuals hailed from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria,

Was it a school teaching fraud and scamming?

Jeez, the mind boggles, sounds like a proper cesspit. 😲

13 minutes ago, Leopold Bloom said:

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria: I am trying to imagine the "English" accents the children would be proudly showing off to their parents....

I guess you have never listened to Japanese teachers of English.

Remember, Japanese kids all get a minimum of six years of English in schools, and less that 10% can hold a conversation. I taught at a Japanese university for 15 years, and only met a handful of students who could produce a full paragraph of understandable English when they arrived as incoming Freshman.

2 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

I guess you have never listened to Japanese teachers of English.

Remember, Japanese kids all get a minimum of six years of English in schools, and less that 10% can hold a conversation. I taught at a Japanese university for 15 years, and only met a handful of students who could produce a full paragraph of understandable English when they arrived as incoming Freshman.

here in Thailand I was teaching kids and they can't even remember how old are you and what is you name and that after 6 grades.... Counting to 10 is difficult to 20 impossible. And that has nothing to do with the quality of the teachers, but the attitude of the students. They are not willing to learn in Thailand as the know that they will always pass... Even kids who did not write one letter in a notebook during the year, they passed..

5 hours ago, happyinthailand said:

This is a simple case of an international school operating outside the law by not being licensed and therefore its teachers not having work permits. Nothing xenophobic or culturally sensitive. I welcome the police arresting teachers who are illegally working as it is likely they are not probably properly background checked and will not probably be sufficiently qualified to get a work permit.

And for those reasons alone attract some very unsavory paedo blowflies to boot ...

Compare to Thai govt schools--any better?

On 4/2/2026 at 8:36 AM, ikke1959 said:

Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

Nothing even close to that, more like a country that wants to enforce it's laws!!

10 minutes ago, ericthai said:

Nothing even close to that, more like a country that wants to enforce it's laws!!

Only for foreigners, not the own citizens. Just read how many unlicend businesses an doctors are as we could read not so long ago. Maybe Thailand should start not to look at others all the time but first solve their own shortcomings. The laws are for everyone the same

On 4/2/2026 at 7:36 PM, ikke1959 said:

Citizens are encouraged to utilize hotlines to ensure legal adherence and safeguard educational standards. This incident serves as a critical reminder of legal obligations and the necessity of vigilance in educational choices.

Sounds a bit like 1938 Germany

And you were there in 1938? Hotlines are used in every country ESPECIALLY in cases of fraud.

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria. surprise. yawn.

On 4/2/2026 at 8:19 PM, Jim Waldron said:

This story really exposes a long‑running structural problem in Thailand’s “international school” sector, and it’s not just about one unlicensed school getting raided. It’s about an entire business model built on cutting corners while parents foot the bill.

The national obsession with having “foreign teachers” has created a market where school owners can slap the word international on the gate, hire the cheapest passport‑holders they can find, and charge premium fees to parents who assume they’re buying quality.

The origins of the teachers arrested here aren’t the issue, the issue is that many schools deliberately recruit from countries where salaries are lower because it keeps their costs down. It’s a cost‑saving strategy dressed up as “global education".

Meanwhile, parents are paying international‑school prices for what often amounts to a budget operation with no accreditation, no oversight, and no real commitment to educational standards. The result is predictable: underqualified teachers, inconsistent curricula, and kids who end up being the ones who pay the real price.

Thailand has some excellent, fully accredited international schools but they’re the minority. The rest operate in a grey zone where the priority is profit, not pedagogy. As long as the system allows anyone with a building and a few foreign staff to market themselves as an “international school”, this cycle will continue.

This raid isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a much bigger problem that regulators have been slow to address. Until there’s stricter enforcement, transparent accreditation, and real consequences for schools that misrepresent themselves, parents will keep getting overcharged, and students will keep getting shortchanged.

Surely it’s the government’s job to make sure all schools are licensed and work permits and qualifications in order. Safety and hygiene are also very important so hygiene inspectors are also needed.

How schools should be able to work like this is beyond comprehension. It’s 2026.

6 hours ago, Jonathan Swift said:

And you were there in 1938? Hotlines are used in every country ESPECIALLY in cases of fraud.

You don't know the history obvious

On 4/3/2026 at 12:33 PM, FolkGuitar said:

I guess you have never listened to Japanese teachers of English.

Remember, Japanese kids all get a minimum of six years of English in schools, and less that 10% can hold a conversation. I taught at a Japanese university for 15 years, and only met a handful of students who could produce a full paragraph of understandable English when they arrived as incoming Freshman.

I have taught English as a foreign language at the University level around the world. I have also taught English as a second language working with international students in US universities. In these cases I am usually working with students who already know English and my classes focus on public speaking and academic writing. The last 8 years of my career, I ended up teaching writing (academic) in the US at a community college to native speakers. I will say that some of the worst students I have had were not international students, but US native speakers who couldn't write a paragraph to save thier lives.

22 minutes ago, Issan girl said:

I have taught English as a foreign language at the University level around the world. I have also taught English as a second language working with international students in US universities. In these cases I am usually working with students who already know English and my classes focus on public speaking and academic writing. The last 8 years of my career, I ended up teaching writing (academic) in the US at a community college to native speakers. I will say that some of the worst students I have had were not international students, but US native speakers who couldn't write a paragraph to save thier lives.

No surprise there! We see this every day on social media.
We don't read posts as much as decipher them.

On 4/3/2026 at 12:15 PM, Leopold Bloom said:

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria: I am trying to imagine the "English" accents the children would be proudly showing off to their parents....

the international schools my daughters attended here in Thailand (BKK and CM), Philippines, Spain, Italy plus 6th grade in California for my older daughter, as part of their program with Arizona State University, the 6th graders took the SAT and daughter scored higher than the national average for that year - up to 6th grade she had been schooled at International schools ( BKK kindergarten plus . - ISB -1 year and Spain 2 years and Philippines 2 years) In all the international schools she attended the teachers were mostly western English speakers, with a minority of local teachers. My older daughter when in university, the Italian native professor asked my daughter to come chat with her regularly because she enjoyed speaking with a real Roman, plus she spoke Spanish with a lisp too just like the locals in Spain. The international schools in other locations that I lived and worked, . also had many western English speaking teachers. I never heard any of my fellow workers with kids in those international schools every complain about any local teachers nor their "accents". This response is based on my personal knowledge of those international schools. Oversight by US congress people always queried about the schooling provided to the children of the diplomatic mission too; this due to the high cost of many children in those schools,

On 4/4/2026 at 3:40 AM, geisha said:

Surely it’s the government’s job to make sure all schools are licensed and work permits and qualifications in order. Safety and hygiene are also very important so hygiene inspectors are also needed.

How schools should be able to work like this is beyond comprehension. It’s 2026.

being licensed doesn't always mean accredited. BTW international school rates are in many cases higher than the university rates here for locals. But some of the international schools though expensive do properly prepare some students for top universities in western nations. Basically, one can get what one pays for, I considered my contributions well worth it.