School Holidays

[LoveT]

Please post me the date for the school holidays in Oct. I'm new in T and have to change my return flight details. Most people just tell me it's "in October"...

[PattayaParent]

Thai schools or International schools?

[nam-thip]

School Holidays?

Don't ask the school Teachers as they won't know.

My misses picked our daughter up from kindergarden (Summer school) today and the teacher told her not to take her tomorrow as it's a school holiday.

No advance notice, nothing!!

[Ijustwannateach]

It's not our (the school teachers') fault.

Most Thai schools are run on a last-minute notice scheme. The directors are the bosses and they can decide when a holiday should occur, for any reason.

Once, a director I worked for cancelled afternoon classes so he could have a staff meeting where he sang karaoke and did a raffle of Buddhist amulets.

Furthermore, there are no standard (as in nationwide) dates for school holidays, at least none that are binding on all universities equally. You will need to find the specific information for the specific school you are interested in. That's why most people tell you it's 'in October' - that's the only (possibly) sure window to mention.

[otherstuff1957]

IJWT is right. There are some general guidelines for dates from the MOE, but school directors have much more authority in Thailand than they do in the West and can change the dates on a whim. Most schools don't publish a schedule and even those that do will often change things as they go along.

Generally speaking, Government and most private schools are closed from mid-march to early May and also the first three weeks in October. Of course, when I say closed I mean that the for-credit classes are not going on. I have worked at schools where 75% of the students only had a one week break and then were back in school for 'rien piset' - or special classes. Also, the closed dates are only for students. Most teachers will continue to do office hours though part of the vacation period.

[toptuan]

I concur with the above posters concerning the wide disparity among schools regarding holidays.

The best I can do is check the Thai Visa Forum where they pin the holidays. Here. That will give you a reasonably close idea of when your school holidays will be. However, many of the Buddhist holidays are iffy (whether school is on or not). Good luck.

[Scott]

Quite a number of years back, the entire October holiday was canceled by none other than the Ministry of Education. There was some big meeting in Bangkok and they decided to change it to November, if I recall correctly. This was quite sudden, but even more sudden for those living in surrounding provinces which weren't notified until the end of September.

[321niti123]

Thai schools usually closed the whole month of october...although i heard they might change due to the school closings/delayed openings this week.

International schools usually close for about 1 week (10 days including 2 weekends) in mid-October, last year it started around the 16th

[Scott]

The dates for students being released and returning are often different from that of teachers. There are also schools that have camps.

No doubt, the current delays in starting school will effect the October break.