I have been sponsoring a child at a school near Jomtien, and he is IMHO very bright and happy.

His mother is now asking that he attend a "crammer" from 3 till 5 daily.

I have seen the place a first floor shophouse open fronted, with many adolescents, mostly girls

working studiously.

I have a number of questions/issues please.

Firstly I do not believe in "cramming" especially of children, I believe it is the norm in Asia.

Second , what are the students cramming for and in particular, what cramming might a 5 year old need ?

He is certainly not preparing for any examination that I am aware of.

Can anyone kindly enlighten me please ?

Maybe you don't know, but even kindy kids here sit 'entrance exams'. Ans also entry to Prathom 1, Mathyom 1 and Mathyom 4. I also don't believe such school provide any worthwhile education, aside from passing some entrance exam. The students are not taught how to think, just how to work out / guess the correct answer to a multiple choice test. Even then, if you look at university entrance exam results, many are in the range of 0-30%. These tutorial courses may be useful for accelerated, bright students, but not very useful for the average student.

Yeah it's basically because Thai kids often don't learn a lot in class itself, so instead they simply teach them most of what they need to know outside of class in these special schools.

Also, and I think this is another reason why they're popular, it means that the kids essentially have a babysitter/tutor until their parents finish work.

But in general, they're the result of good intentions, parents want their children to get ahead, as education is a lot more competitive in Asia than what it is in western countries.

An alternative might be to find an after school activity - football, swimming, art, martial arts, music may be available down your way……

Not directly related but I am a little astonished to see that as he moves from one grade to the next 5 yo to 6 yo..he and all his classmates are expensively capped and gowned for "graduation". Graduation to what ? He has not passed any exams I am aware of. Does this happen every year ?

I notice that there are many top level cars belonging to the admin, while the classroom TV might be from "Fred's Unclaimed Freight"

Also when paying fees the recipient showing on the bank transfer screen is simply one name, not XYZ School etc.

The nice part of using a "crammer" is the boy will get all of his homework finished there, and corrected there too if necessary. He'll be completely free of school work once he gets home.

Maybe mama cannot take care of the boy during this time, too much work load....

Fatfather

If he likes it, great. My kid has no other kids in the neighborhood to play with so he loves school.