Best Ep Schools In Bangkok?

[whooliggen]

Hey All,

Firstly, thanks to everyone that contributed to the topic about 50% thai & english education. Really has helped me out a lot. As a result of that, I have come to the conclusion that I'm looking for a Thai school with a good EP program.

Do any of you know of a rankings list that has been published on the best EP schools in Bangkok? If not, do any of you guys know of particularly good schools that offer this English program? My daughter has just started her last year of primary school, so I would like to be looking for her school for next year as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

Have / hope you are having a good weekend.

Later,

W.

[Ijustwannateach]

Almost every school in Bangkok will claim to be the "best" for a whole variety of reasons. To find out if they are really any good is more difficult- usually it involves finding out how many of the students leave each year for OTHER schools. If you kept following the chain of students upwards (to schools with less and less turnover and longer and longer waiting lists), you might find one or two of the EP schools where the students generally stay (and are pretty good). Otherwise, most of the students stay on a revolving-door plan for many years, continually looking for that one (mostly nonexistent) school where they can make all As with no effort and be educated and spoiled at the same time. In my view, *none* of the EP programs are generally good- either the students themselves, the parents, the administration, or dodgy teachers (or all of the above) manage to spoil most programs one way or another. There are differences in degrees of badness, though. I would approach your search as "where are the necessary evils as insignificant as possible?" rather than "which place is best?"

"Steven"

[PeaceBlondie]

There are no rankings, are there? How would you know the school's EP program is even approved by the MoE? Other than rumour and innuendo (like the thai school watch com, whatever that is), how would you ever meet 539 parents who would honestly tell an interviewer the truth? What Thai school would admits its deficiencies?

BTW, I don't think Steven is saying all the teachers are dodgy, just that the best of schools can have poorly qualified or poorly performing teachers, just as the worst schools could have excellent teachers. The mere fact that it calls itself EP doesn't tell you how good it is.

Then there's location. You don't want your daughter doing four hours of daily commuting through Bangkok's polluted air. And expense: isn't the EP tuition about 20,000 to 50,000 baht per year?

[The_Moog]

I asked my wife about this, as I am already starting to agitate about this issue for Little One.

She said that sometimes the EP schools merely teach a couple of subjects in English - using a farang teacher - and all the rest is in Thai - and the schoolyard chat - which (arguably), determines which language the nipper treats as 1st language - is Thai too.

I appreciate that education is about more than simply the language of instruction, but its a place to focus initially.

[PeaceBlondie]

On the earlier thread, didn't we try to differentiate between

Programs that provide English taught by a native speaker

Programs (MEP) that are a mini english program, typically teaching only English, maths and science by a native speaker.

Programs (EP) that would do all of the MEP plus varous social studies such as history, leaving the Thai teachers to only teach Thai history, Thai language, and Buddhism

Moog, what you're telling us from your wife (a couple of subjects) sounds like MEP.

Not sure where bilingual falls in there, or whether the true real actual genuine international schools teach any courses in Thai.