Broader education gains appeal in Asia
KUALA LUMPUR: Samakamon Chaintanaseri was intent on giving a better education to her children than the teaching that she had received in her own childhood; so she enrolled them in an international school.
"We didn't learn how to express our ideas," she recalled of her days in Thailand's national school system. "We learned from our teachers that we're not supposed to stand in front of the public and say anything."
Chaintanaseri worries about how her children will excel in the 21st century if they are not encouraged to think for themselves and if they lack exposure to the world beyond her native Thailand.
Across Asia parents are choosing to send their children to international schools on similar grounds. Many Asian school systems provide teacher- led instruction rather than student- centered interactive learning.
"More parents realize the skills set their kids are going to need will have to involve more than a didactic, rote- learning system," said Judith Guy, thedirector for the Asia-Pacific region of the International Baccalaureate Organization.
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Today in Asia - Pacific
Thailand has led the way in providing an international option, with the number of international schools established in the kingdom soaring to 107 today, predominantly following British and American curriculums, from 30 eight years ago, and with nearly 30,000 students enrolled at the primary and secondary levels, according to Education Ministry officials.
The trend was spurred by globalization, with a flood of multinationals entering the region in the 1990s, bringing a demand for international education to meet the needs of their expatriate employees.
While globalization was the spur, Thailand was unusually responsive, becoming the first country in the region to relax restrictions on international education, in the early 1990s, and allowing international schools to recruit as much as 50 percent of their enrollment from the local population.
That reflected the view of the prime minister at the time, Anand Panyarachun, a former diplomat who was himself educated at Dulwich College, London, and Cambridge University, that the country's education system should offer wider parental choice, and that "doing so would bring fresh inputs into the Thai education system," said Kunying Kasama Varavarn, the Harvard-educated permanent secretary in the Education Ministry.
The Thai government has been remarkably prescient in understanding the need "to create internationally-minded people" who still retain a Thai identity, said Usa Somboon, headmistress of the International School of Bangkok.
The government of the recently deposed prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, also was engaged in modernizing the national education system, a policy that is unlikely to be changed by the military coup last month, which has been followed by the appointment of a leading advocate of change, Wijit Srisa-arn, as interim education minister, Kunying said.
Schools like the International School of Bangkok still cater primarily to children of expatriates and employees of multinationals like Nike, Ford and Chevron. Increasingly, however, demand for international education is coming from Thais, who now fill about a third of international school places, according to the Education Ministry.
An example is Harrow International School, which opened its doors in Bangkok in 1998 and which maintains close links with Harrow School in Britain, a prestigious independent college attended by 23 princes of the Thai royal family since the late 19th century.
From an initial 40 students, Harrow International has grown to 1,200 now; and while its students are drawn from 24 nationalities, 70 percent are Thai.
While the 50 percent cap on Thai enrollment remains formally in place, "we are not strict about enforcing it, because of market demand," Wannasarn Worakit, the Education Ministry's director for international education promotion said.
Other countries in the region are now following Thailand's lead. Earlier this year Malaysia, home to 32 international schools, loosened a ban on local enrollment and now allows Malaysian nationals to fill up to 40 percent of international school places.
While only about 3,500 Malaysians had enrolled in international schools by August, according to the Education Ministry in Kuala Lumpur, educationexperts said they were hopeful that the reform would lead to higher standards.
"More students will allow for more schools to open up and improve the quality of education here," said Jerry Liston, the director of the British Council in Kuala Lumpur. "Without relaxation of these laws it doesn't look attractive for new schools to set up."
In Thailand, expanding access to international schools has meant that more affluent middle class parents are choosing to keep their children in Thailand rather than send them abroad.
It is not cheap to attend international schools. For example, the American Pacific International School, in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, charges annual tuition of 480,000 baht, or $12,800 per year.
Still,