New International School Coming to Udon?

[rufus]

the school should have international accreditation by a reputable accreditation organization that ensures any child successfully completing the course of instruction has readily transferable credit.

I am sorry to say, but this idea of credits is a peculiarly US idea and is quite silly. Had you said that the school should offer the Cambridge curriculum or the IB I would have agreed with you.
A question you should ask is"transferable credit with whom?"

[grievous]

I wouldn't be all that concerned with being accredited internationally as at this stage they're only teaching primary level schooling.

[Teacher Dan]

the school should have international accreditation by a reputable accreditation organization that ensures any child successfully completing the course of instruction has readily transferable credit.

I am sorry to say, but this idea of credits is a peculiarly US idea and is quite silly. Had you said that the school should offer the Cambridge curriculum or the IB I would have agreed with you.
A question you should ask is"transferable credit with whom?"

That may be true, but since Thailand is modeling their education system after the US system as did Singapore, the credit system is used in many other places besides the US. While in the navy I lived in Scotland and had many friends whose kids went to school in the UK, but when they returned they often had to repeat a year (or more) because the UK system did not readily transfer over to the US and they had no way to actually identify how close a student was to graduation in the secondary because of the lack of a credit system. It makes complete sense considering it gives one an exact idea of how far they are from graduation both in high school or college and that is probably why others have adopted it too.

[Teacher Dan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_C ... ion_System

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_U ... udent_Hour

Notice that although both systems are vastly different in the way that they measure credits for the year, they are both credit systems--the US is credit hours and the EU is credit points. The EU measuring system seems extremely unwieldy when you have so many credits per year and so few hours per credit--25 to 30 vs. the 120 hours required by the US system which makes the numbers that you work with smaller and more readily wielded to determine someone's exact placement within the system.

[rufus]

the school should have international accreditation by a reputable accreditation organization that ensures any child successfully completing the course of instruction has readily transferable credit.

I am sorry to say, but this idea of credits is a peculiarly US idea and is quite silly. Had you said that the school should offer the Cambridge curriculum or the IB I would have agreed with you.
A question you should ask is"transferable credit with whom?"

That may be true, but since Thailand is modeling their education system after the US system as did Singapore, the credit system is used in many other places besides the US. While in the navy I lived in Scotland and had many friends whose kids went to school in the UK, but when they returned they often had to repeat a year (or more) because the UK system did not readily transfer over to the US and they had no way to actually identify how close a student was to graduation in the secondary because of the lack of a credit system. It makes complete sense considering it gives one an exact idea of how far they are from graduation both in high school or college and that is probably why others have adopted it too.

I repeat my question: transferable credit with whom? With Thai schools; with Australian universities; with US universities? And the list goes on. An International certificate on the on the hand has a measure of gravitas. No doubt we shall continue this conversation in the immediate future.
I hear this talk of credits often. It always assumes that students will go to the US to study. This is not the case by a long way. most Asian students study in Asian universities, others study in Australia or NZ. Only a very few study in the States. The University of Sains Malaysia, (to pull one out of the hat), would not give two figs if Somchit had attained 30 credits at XYZ school in Udon. On the other hand, if Somchit had completed his A levels or his IB.............

[Teacher Dan]

the school should have international accreditation by a reputable accreditation organization that ensures any child successfully completing the course of instruction has readily transferable credit.

I am sorry to say, but this idea of credits is a peculiarly US idea and is quite silly. Had you said that the school should offer the Cambridge curriculum or the IB I would have agreed with you.
A question you should ask is"transferable credit with whom?"

That may be true, but since Thailand is modeling their education system after the US system as did Singapore, the credit system is used in many other places besides the US. While in the navy I lived in Scotland and had many friends whose kids went to school in the UK, but when they returned they often had to repeat a year (or more) because the UK system did not readily transfer over to the US and they had no way to actually identify how close a student was to graduation in the secondary because of the lack of a credit system. It makes complete sense considering it gives one an exact idea of how far they are from graduation both in high school or college and that is probably why others have adopted it too.

I repeat my question: transferable credit with whom? With Thai schools; with Australian universities; with US universities? And the list goes on. An International certificate on the on the hand has a measure of gravitas. No doubt we shall continue this conversation in the immediate future.
I hear this talk of credits often. It always assumes that students will go to the US to study. This is not the case by a long way. most Asian students study in Asian universities, others study in Australia or NZ. Only a very few study in the States. The University of Sains Malaysia, (to pull one out of the hat), would not give two figs if Somchit had attained 30 credits at XYZ school in Udon. On the other hand, if Somchit had completed his A levels or his IB.............

I think we will have plenty of time to discuss this in the future, but I believe the secondary school credits would be transferable between any school system that uses credits--including the entire EU--even if they are not direct matches in the measure, there is a definable way to transfer. For example if the US uses 120 hours for a single credit but the EU uses 30 hours for a credit, then a single US credit would be equal to 4 credits in an EU school. Additionally if they use a comparable curriculum system the credits in a specific class would match up so that if you needed to have say 4 credits in math in the US and had, say 20 credits in maths in an EU system, then if you divide the number by 4, you would get 5, so that in the US you would exceed the requirement by having 5 credits in maths.

[rufus]

Yes, I take the point. However 120 hours of rubbish remains 120 hours of rubbish. Unless there is some standard that is being measured by those credits, then the whole concept becomes meaningless. This problem is resolved if an external exam is sat for, hence my reference to A levels and IB.

[Teacher Dan]

Good point and that is one of the things that the NCLB (No-Child-Left-Behind) Law was supposed to remedy in the US by giving a national test for graduation and such that was common throughout the US--but it hasn't exactly worked out as planned. That was (and still may be) a huge problem in the US schools as a person who was, say, a junior (year 11) in South Carolina who then moved to, say, Ohio, found that by their credits they were still a junior in Ohio, but by their actual academic achievement they were little more than freshmen (year 9).

You are very right about the external test being a much more accurate measure and more reasonable way to set your curriculum by, but the credits can still help keep track of progress as long as the curriculum is aligned towards the same goal--the external test. In Thailand, they tend to ignore the ONET results for partly that reason, most students nationally do poorly on the the test--there have been many articles about it--and rather than allow that to reflect badly on the schools and teachers (saving face) they choose to disregard the test. Admittedly there are flaws with the test as I helped prepare students for it and their samples and previous year's copies were full of grammatical errors and answers that were only correct in Thailand.

[Teacher Dan]

No mention of cost, though. Timeframe is a bit confusing. It says it will open in September and then says it will take 3 years to build...

Incidentally, I emailed them some time back as I was looking for an option for my sons and this was part of their reply, which answers the questions about cost:

"Thank you for your email. At this stage, we will open for Nursery to Year 1 (2-6 year olds) students. I don't think we will open any higher grades (Y4-6) until perhaps 2016 at the very earliest. Fees will range from 190,000 to 270,000 baht per year."

[merchant seaman]

190,000-270,000 Baht? Is this a boarding school for that amount? Tuition at Mahasarakhan University is no where near that much.

[Teacher Dan]

190,000-270,000 Baht? Is this a boarding school for that amount? Tuition at Mahasarakhan University is no where near that much.

I know I was shocked when I read their reply! My nephew graduated from Khon Kaen and may have paid about that much for all 4 years. My niece is going there this year and they've raised their tuition a little, but still 3 years would be covered by the 270k. As soon as I read it, I knew that there was no way I'd have been able to put my kids there even if they had offered the higher grade levels that I needed--even assuming that unlike Don Bosco, they actually offered the standard 50% tuition rate for employees.

[bumper]

Just a funny (rhetorical) afterthought: Is an international school with only rich Thai/Laotian students and no western students still an international school?

That is pretty much true. The most Thai international schools have vast majority rich Thai kids. Unless you have the funds to put them in schools like American School Bangkok or International School Bangkok and a few others that are popular with foreign expats( lots of them tuition are paid by third party)

If your home language is English then may be less problems for your kids to pick up English, because your kids have chance to speak it all day, Most of these Thai international schools are overwhelmed and dominant with Thai language among the kids as the language of communication. If your kids are not native English speakers, it is pretty tough for them to pick up the language properly, when all the kids around them speak Thai.

My kids native language is Dutch, and German as close second, they are bilingual, they had really tough time many years in Thai international schools, I switched 2 schools in 3 years, wasting all these entrance donations, because they simply had tough time learn this language properly with all majority Thai speaking kids, and were forced to take Thai class every day, which they had even a tougher time, they failed Thai class all 3 years, it seemed their minds were exhausted every day from school, and English was also abysmal, thankfully their Dutch and German stayed on track from speaking at home with their mom.

Since I cannot afford to send them to American school Bangkok and other alikes, and also cannot pay the huge entrance donation, because I am on contract here in Laos, contract can end abruptly, so I am not willing to risk these ridiculous entrance fees, but I felt my kids need another better environment to study English and also better environment for life at affordable rates, some of my colleagues in Laos put their kids in Penang, so we ended up putting my kids there, and I go visit them every 2 weeks, big thanks to Air Asia.

That was when they started to pick up English so fast, because in their school there is no dominant language and it's a all English speaking environment with 45 nationalities, in one year they have learned more English than the 3 years in Thailand.

So from my personal experience, if your home language is not English, and send your kids to predominantly Thai kids international school, your kids may have trouble learn and speak properly, and plus that mandatory Thai class, your kids may get really messed up in their speaking ability and ended up speaking every language with strange accents, yes happened to some kids of my Lao expats friends(Dutch), late teens in high school and speak English(school in Bangkok) and Dutch(home) with strange Thai accent.

About this new school, don't know Udon has enough foreign expats or not to make it a real international school, I think at this high prices, the rich Lao kids won't come, because they have several good international or Englsih/Lao schools in Vientiane for less this price, and with very good reputations. If the new school gets their enrollment almost from Thai kids, I think it would probably turn out like the schools my kids used to attend in Bangkok, where almost all the kids communicate in Thai, and really tough place for foreign non-English speaking kids to pick up this language.

Really thought this was an interesting POST since we are talking an international school, emphasis on the Thai Language. Where besides Thailand can you use that Language?

[merchant seaman]

Don't have any school aged kids. But seems to me if you want your child to receive a western standard type of education you need to move back to your home country.

[moomoo]

Not neccesarily true MS, i went to visit 3 schools a couple of weeks ago looking into schooling for my kids. One in chiang mai, one in hua hin and one on samui. Incorporated the visits into a bit of a holiday. All teach the cambridge curriculum in english with native speaking teachers

All reasonably priced, we have to relocate from bung kan to one of these places and even after renting somewhere to live its still cheaper for us to stay here in thailand.

OK we would get free education in the UK but i wouldbe paying a Uk mortgage instead of renting the house out and having someone pay it for me. I'd also get spanked on tax and the high cost of living.

We are looking at staying here in thailand at least until my eldest is old enough for high school (7 years) perhaps longer who knows its a way off yet.

The new place in udon is a unknown quantity, and to be honest i quite fancy a move.

I am pretty pleased with what i saw. Schools in the UK aren't what they used to be, come to think about it the uk isn't what it used to be

[LoveDaBlues]

Don't have any school aged kids. But seems to me if you want your child to receive a western standard type of education you need to move back to your home country.

Agree with this. One of the reasons I'm moving back to the states. My little one will enter first grade in the USA; tired of the poor education standards here.

[Teacher Dan]

Really thought this was an interesting POST since we are talking an international school, emphasis on the Thai Language. Where besides Thailand can you use that Language?

That's a very good point--not exactly cosmopolitan is it?

[rufus]

Don't have any school aged kids. But seems to me if you want your child to receive a western standard type of education you need to move back to your home country.

I disagree with this as well.

[bumper]

Really thought this was an interesting POST since we are talking an international school, emphasis on the Thai Language. Where besides Thailand can you use that Language?

That's a very good point--not exactly cosmopolitan is it?

No but it is the truth I think the two most important languages to know for the future are Chinese and English. For those wanting to stay here (me), yes Thai. A friends daughter won a contest here in Udon for English high school kids. She got a years free trip to the U.S. and finished her last year of high school there. She was offered free scholarships to college there.

She didn't take them, completed University here. She was offered jobs with English news outlets T.V. and newspapers. Some with a salary of 50K a month. But, it was desk work in Bangkok. She didn't want it.

Fell in love with a young German Guy, moved there learned that language, another school and she is now working for the Marriot hotel. So in the end she knew Thai, German and English. Will she use the Thai in her again in her career, Guess that depends if she transfers here.

The point being her English ability opened a lot of doors for her.

My wife has a Cousin working in Bangkok, non English speaker University Graduate, works for a computer company, makes 20K a month. That is a big difference.

[FrazeeDK]

same here.. niece is a 4 year degree holder in accounting.. She's been working in BBK for nearly 7 years now and finally got up to about 23k a month... Despite mandatory English all through HS and College her speaking .ability is about zero.

[grievous]

I thought the new international school will only have teachers from English speaking countries and all classes will be in English using.