My son is enrolled at a thai school and I would like to know the required documents for him to obtain an education visa.

He is currently on a tourist visa. I have tried to look at the MOFA Thailand website but it doesn't seem to be working!

Their website seems to be down indeed, I cannot open it either.

Here is from my experience (ten years ago): You need a letter from the teaching institute confirming that your son is enrolled there. The teaching institute must be registered with the Ministry of Education.

A friendly consulate (Taiwan in my case) is the place to apply for the non-ED (non-immigrant EDucational visa), and they will check whether the institute is indeed registered to issue such a confirmation. He'll get the non-ED for 90 days. After 90 days, the institute will need to issue another letter and your son will get an extenstion of stay (in my case, for a year).

There is a possibility that the tourist visa can be changed into a non-ED, so your son won't have to leave the country to get a new visa. I don't know how that works and whether it applies in your case. I never changed visa types, but someone else might chip in.

It might depend greatly on the nature of the school. If it is a regular school, he might be able to convert from a tourist visa. If it is something like a language course, following lessons for abut 4 hours a week etc. They will probably send him aborad to get a ED-visa.

Check with the school first if they have experience with the paperwork required. For a regular (international) school it shouldn't be too difficult to provide all the required paperwork.

A real "international school' or Thai university can supply paperwork from the MOE (Ministry of Education) which allows enrolled students to convert to an ED visa in-country.

A private language school does not get the same paperwork from the MOE. The documents they get are addressed to a "Thai Embassy or Consulate". Seeing as there are NO Thai Embassy's or Consulates inside Thailand; this necessitates a trip to another country to secure the initial ED visa.

Just a note, the Thai Embassy or Consulate doesn't check with the MOE to see if the school is approved (as there're HUNDREDS of 'em scattered thru-out this country). The student is give paperwork from his school and support documentaion issued by the MOE stating they are attending a registered school.

IF they're attending a private language school, they'll most likely get just a single entry 90 day ED visa. This is extended at Thai Immigrations with the paperwork the school provides the student every 3 months for the duration of the year.

IF they're attending a real uni or international school quite often Thai Immigrations will issue them a visa which is good for the entire year, (although a re-entry permit is needed to keep this visa 'alive' should they leave the country and return).

Hope it helped, some at least .

Edited May 6, 201115 yr by tod-daniels

Just a note, the Thai Embassy or Consulate doesn't check with the MOE to see if the school is approved (as there're HUNDREDS of 'em scattered thru-out this country). The student is give paperwork from his school and support documentaion issued by the MOE stating they are attending a registered school.

OK, this might have changed in the last ten years then. In my case, the consulate did have a (long, and printed) list of all MoE-approved teaching institutions, and they manually checked whether the institute that has issued the letter I had brought was included in that list. I would think by now they use something very advanced, liked Excel files, but it would be a real step backwards if the school had to provide a copy of all the support documentation to each international student.