If you had to send your kids to a good school nearby, what neighboring country

[Will2011]

Let's assume you are working in Thailand and want your kid to be in a proper school (as sending the kid back to the U.S. would be too far), what nearby country would you choose? Singapore? HK? Or somewhere else (Australia is a bit distant)...

Just a simple question...

[FritsSikkink]

I would stay with my kid and if i didn't like the schools i wouldn't work there.

[Will2011]

Thanks for your off topic comment. If you'd like to add a comment related to the topic, please feel free to do so.

[Jasun]

Singapore

[weegee]

Singapore

[thaicbr]

Is your kid Thai?

Are you going to live in Thailand in the future?

Is your child going to stay and work in Thailand in the future?

How old is the child?

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

[samran]

For the money you'd spend on boarding school, you might as well sent them to Pattana or NIST in Bangkok. You'd get the good school, plus being close to your kids.

[joeaverage]

Thanks for your off topic comment. If you'd like to add a comment related to the topic, please feel free to do so.

hardly off topic, excellent advice.

[ExpatJ]

If you have the money, NIST, Pattana and ISB in Bangkok are equal to or better than other schools in the region.

[Kitsune]

Few british parents told me KL had a "real" British International school much better than here ...

[Cluey]

Yes, have to go along with Fritz on that. I was sent to boarding school before puberty, and although I certainly got a good education, I don't think it was good for me emotionally/socially, picked up a lot of bad habits from my peers and was not sufficiently supervised by the teachers/dorm masters.

But to answer your actual question, certainly Singapore over Hong Kong.

Shanghai's supposed to have made incredible strides in recent years, but that's also pretty far. Hong Kong would be OK though, but there are probably good schools in Malaysia as well.

Australia certainly has some excellent boarding schools, and perhaps better fit for the cultural side of things would be worth the extra travel time and expense?

However note that the top ten or dozen international schools do an excellent job, and some of them have boarding. Are you sure these other options would be less expensive when you count the airfares and other costs of them being overseas?

Few british parents told me KL had a "real" British International school much better than here ...

-

A former head teacher at one of the top schools here had previously worked there, and from what he told me sounded like it wasn't necessarily better than the top ones here, but perhaps just as good.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Cluey

[Will2011]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

[samran]

Deleted...

Edited June 12, 2013 by samran

[MikeyIdea]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

Bangkok Pattana or NIST are equally proper to proper schools in Singapore or Hongkong, or America for that, using your own word of choice

If your future child is half Thai, then a proper school in Thailand would be better than sending the child somewhere else, assuming that the family is not also in this somewhere else

Then it also depends on how you want your child to come out. American schools tend to foster an aggressiveness that is not that appreciated in other parts of the world, on the other hand, American schools also foster competitiveness very well and that is something that is going to be more and more necessary for our children to have

Then it's also about how much you want your child to value the extended family. If that is of little importance, then America and Europe is fine, if that is important, look to Asia

Schools and the environment a child grows up in do more than give education, they shape people for life

Everything is give and take

[thaicbr]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

So you don't have children but decided to waste people's time with a make believe question THEN get upset when people respond.... brilliant. What a knob!

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

[FritsSikkink]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

Don't get your knickers in a twist.

I told you what i would do. There is nothing judgmental about that.

If i said you shouldn't have kids then it would be judgmental, but i won't do that just an example.

Edited June 12, 2013 by FritsSikkink

[Will2011]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

Bangkok Pattana or NIST are equally proper to proper schools in Singapore or Hongkong, or America for that, using your own word of choice

If your future child is half Thai, then a proper school in Thailand would be better than sending the child somewhere else, assuming that the family is not also in this somewhere else

Then it also depends on how you want your child to come out. American schools tend to foster an aggressiveness that is not that appreciated in other parts of the world, on the other hand, American schools also foster competitiveness very well and that is something that is going to be more and more necessary for our children to have

Then it's also about how much you want your child to value the extended family. If that is of little importance, then America and Europe is fine, if that is important, look to Asia

Schools and the environment a child grows up in do more than give education, they shape people for life

Everything is give and take

Thank you for your meaningful contribution. I appreciate it as you explain your point with supporting arguments.

American schools are good in terms of cognitive thinking. However, knowledge based, it seems that Australian, NZ, British, Swiss and French schools are more oriented towards knowledge and History in general.

That being said, perhaps with a nearby country like Singapore, programs would be more "free" as opposed to Thailand, if you know what I mean...

[Will2011]

Thanks for those who really answered the question.

For those who didn't understand it and are off topic, I'm wondering if you went to school in the middle of the Jungle in Thailand

No offense but I just mentioned the following : "just a simple question", "let's assume", "if your kid". I thought those hints were enough. So just to be clear, I don't have any kids, I just wanted to know for personal enlightenment.

But, it appears clearer that there are some judgmental folks out there. Please take it easy and relax a bit.

So you don't have children but decided to waste people's time with a make believe question THEN get upset when people respond.... brilliant. What a knob!

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

I'd say that reading your comments is a waste of time. There are other sections if you want to joke around. Plus, I didn't force you to answer my question, did I?

[Cluey]

That being said, perhaps with a nearby country like Singapore, programs would be more "free" as opposed to Thailand, if you know what I mean...

-

Actually I have no idea what you mean but you've made me curious - free as in speech or beer?

As far as I know neither applies very well to Singapore.

[Will2011]

Speech. A bit more than Thailand though...

[Cluey]

Speech. A bit more than Thailand though...

-

That's not saying much. I've heard their schooling's pretty darn intense and focused on very specific achievement targets. So from that point of view, stuff you can measure with statistics, international testing standards etc yes very very good quality education.

Not so sure about specifically "free" from the loosy-goosy creativity innovation point of view, and specifically on "free speech", I bet if a student wanted to learn the full truth about the last fifty years of Singapore history, including say political repression and corruption related to Burmese drug trafficking, you probably would find a fair bit of difficulty getting the same level of objective information in the schools as you'd get from overseas (outside Singapore) scholars.

But I could be wrong, and of course the same is definitely true say in the US, only recently have the truth about stuff like our government's intelligence agencies' involvement in smuggling opiates and cocaine, the mind-control LSD tests on American citizens been proven and admitted rather than just being called conspiracy theories. In every country, the local school system is going to have a "pro us" historical bias.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Cluey

[MikeyIdea]

- Thank you for your meaningful contribution. I appreciate it as you explain your point with supporting arguments.
American schools are good in terms of cognitive thinking. However, knowledge based, it seems that Australian, NZ, British, Swiss and French schools are more oriented towards knowledge and History in general.
That being said, perhaps with a nearby country like Singapore, programs would be more "free" as opposed to Thailand, if you know what I mean...

***********

I don't think that American schools are better than British and Australian schools in terms of cognitive thinking, or top Thai international schools like Bangkok Patana or NIST either for that matter. It is not only school that develops cognitive thinking though, family and the surrounding environment also contribute. I see a Thai Thai family environment as negative for cognitive thinking but a child growing up in a half-western environment where the father takes an active role in his childs upbringing and education will hardly be disadvantaged. And we parents should be more active in our childrens education anyway

Knowledge as such is just one part on what total work performance is based on and it is a part that gets less and less important as we climb the career ladder and soft skills take priority, way overrated except for the first years of the working life

Another very important factor in deciding education is the fact that your child will graduate 20 years from now and will work another 40 years after that, that's 60 years from now. The world will not look the same in 40 years time when your child is half... way through his working life. China and India will be the worlds leading economies and America and Europe will have struggled to stand still for over a generation. America is not going to be able to gain advantage over the rest of the world by increasing competitiveness much longer, Americans are already the world leader in consuming anti-depressants Mandarin as a second language advisable

As to the thread title: If you had to send your to a good school nearby, what neighbouring country would you choose?

Easy, I wouldn't. The negative aspect of separating the child from the family and the family from the child is simply way to great for all involved and the gains, if any, are negligable, or worse

Everything is give and take

MikeyIdea

Edited June 14, 2013 by MikeyIdea

[StreetCowboy]

It sounds like the OP hasn't really thought very hard about the topic, or done his homework.

I have.

Patana. If your family can stand living in Thailand

SC

Edited June 14, 2013 by StreetCowboy

[boosta]

It sounds like the OP hasn't really thought very hard about the topic, or done his homework.

I have.

Patana. If your family can stand living in Thailand

SC

-

I agree along with NIST every bit as good, but should point out that at least in my experience there are four or five that are very close if not just as good, all depending on what factors you may value as much as pure academics - music drama other arts, sport, extracurriculars, percentage of local students, turnover of teaching staff, etc. Some of these have boarding facilities and are probably better alternatives than what the OP is suggesting.

And then another half-dozen or so that are still within the top tier, say a 9 as opposed to a 10, but none of them are priced much lower, all well over half a million per year plus extras like "optional" school trips, often overseas.

After that the gap between the top dozen or so and the next batch down is so great that it's really not worth considering if you put a high value on education for your children.

But even that group are light-years ahead of the average regular Thai government school.

[MikeyIdea]

If you have the money, NIST, Pattana and ISB in Bangkok are equal to or better than other schools in the region.

NIST and Bangkok Pattana yes, I am a bit more sceptical about ISB

[rookball]

agreed that the op didnt give much thought about his question

besides, whats the difference in the distance? australia, britian, singapore blah blah either way your kids arent coming home till vacation and you arent staying with your kids. the biggest distance is your commitment to your kids

[boosta]

besides, whats the difference in the distance? australia, britian, singapore blah blah either way your kids arent coming home till vacation and you arent staying with your kids. the biggest distance is your commitment to your kids

-

Singapore would mean popping home for weekends is practical, lots of school holidays have short breaks mid-term, public holidays create 3-4 day weekends etc.

And Dad can go visit the kids anytime as well.

[asupeartea]

Yes, have to go along with Fritz on that. I was sent to boarding school before puberty, and although I certainly got a good education, I don't think it was good for me emotionally/socially, picked up a lot of bad habits from my peers and was not sufficiently supervised by the teachers/dorm masters.

 

But to answer your actual question, certainly Singapore over Hong Kong. 

 

Shanghai's supposed to have made incredible strides in recent years, but that's also pretty far. Hong Kong would be OK though, but there are probably good schools in Malaysia as well.

 

Australia certainly has some excellent boarding schools, and perhaps better fit for the cultural side of things would be worth the extra travel time and expense?

 

However note that the top ten or dozen international schools do an excellent job, and some of them have boarding. Are you sure these other options would be less expensive when you count the airfares and other costs of them being overseas?

 

 

Few british parents told me KL had a "real" British International school much better than here ...

-

A former head teacher at one of the top schools here had previously worked there, and from what he told me sounded like it wasn't necessarily better than the top ones here, but perhaps just as good.

 

The "Canadian" school outside of Shanghai is a farce.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[boosta]

The "Canadian" school outside of Shanghai is a farce.

-

May be so, but there are a lot of schools obviously doing it right there

http://www.ncee.org/publications/surpassing-shanghai/

http://www.unescobkk.org/education/news/article/pisa-perfect-comparing-education-in-finland-and-singapore/

[StreetCowboy]

agreed that the op didnt give much thought about his question

besides, whats the difference in the distance? australia, britian, singapore blah blah either way your kids arent coming home till vacation and you arent staying with your kids. the biggest distance is your commitment to your kids

The only good reason I can see for sending the family to school overseas is so that he can go out on the town every night. Otherwise, the additional cost would be better spent on a better school in Thailand, and as mentioned earlier by others, the best schools in Bangkok are the equal of the best schools anywhere

SC