On Pattaya Secrets Forum today, a poster queried which was the best school in the Pattaya area. Quite a few of the respondents named the Regent's International School as the best in the area. My take on the issue is based on feedback I have received from a fee paying parent of a student at the school.
In his opinion his son gets a decent education in spite the school being poorly administered. That happens because the teachers make the best of a poor situation. He claims the school is just a cash cow for the owner and little is reinvested in the school. The various departments operate with a minimum of staff to minimise costs and without even a small budget to cover day to day expenditure. If a teacher needs as much as a box of pencils then he/she must put in a written requisition.
For kids who are half Brit and half Thai they will end up speaking good English but the school is not so good at getting the same kids to read and write Thai which is essential if your half Thai kids are going to end up living in Thailand. My pal says this is because the school focuses more on the needs of it's corporate customers, kids of parents working in multi-nationals on the Eastern Seaboard and who are only here for a few years before moving back to their country of origin. As a result, more attention is given to teaching French than Thai so that these kids can slip back in to the UK education system without too many problems.
On the sports front only the top 10 players or so in each year group get to play football on a regular basis. If your kid loves football but isn't in the top 10 ability wise then he can forget about playing football at the Regent's. It appears they only want to coach the ones that can already play. Duh!! No football plus no cricket and no rugby. Swimming and P.E. appear to be the only activities regularly on offer to all kids at the school but for the majority, this amounts to just one lesson of each per week.
Overall, the school flatters to deceive and probably won't change it's ways until it has real competition from another 'name' international school on the Eastern Seaboard. The way Pattaya is growing it will happen one day but until then the Regent's is your only real alternative to the Thai schools in the area.
Primary School fees are approx 105,000 Baht per term and Senior School fees are approx 150,000 Baht per term. I specify approx cause discounts are available for paying a years fees, 3 terms, in advance.
Sierra Tango
- Thai police have arrested a German tourist as the chief suspect in the murder of fellow-countryman Kurt Schmolke earlier this week at Thailand's Pattaya beach resort, Thai police said Wednesday. Michael Schmidt, 49, from Wurmannsquick, Germany, was arrested Tuesday night after evidence indicated he was the prime suspect in Schmolke's murder, said Major Jakarin Tuasupat of Pattaya's Banglamung Police Station. "Schmidt still claims that he is innocent, although he admitted to being with the victim on the day of the murder," said Jakarin in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. [via Earthtimes.org]
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