Thailand's international schools reach 280 as new openings outpace pupil growth

Thailand now has about 280 international schools, and new ones are opening faster than families are filling them, according to estimates from Kasikorn Research Center (KResearch), the research arm of Kasikornbank.

The bank's analysts said the number of schools grew by about 5.3 per cent in 2026, while the number of pupils grew by about 3.8 per cent. Their figures, published on 9 October and reported by The Nation and Thai business outlets this week, put the count at 234 schools in 2022, 280 this year and a forecast 293 in 2027.

Enrolment has risen too, from 66,352 pupils in 2022 to 86,056 in 2026, with 89,200 expected next year. Spread across more campuses, that leaves the average school smaller. KResearch said the typical school had 312 pupils in 2024 and 2025, falls to 307 this year and is likely to drop to 304 in 2027. New schools carry the most risk, it said, because they must pay their start-up costs while they build up numbers.

Bangkok holds more than 45 per cent of the country's international schools, and KResearch expects the contest for pupils to be sharpest there.

Fees doing the work

Schools are leaning on fees to hold up income. Average yearly tuition at a Bangkok international school was 776,887 baht in 2024/25 and 799,818 baht in 2025/26, a rise of about 3 per cent. KResearch forecasts 839,184 baht for 2026/27, an increase of about 5 per cent.

The sector's revenue has grown from 75 billion baht in 2022 to 116 billion baht in 2025, and the bank forecasts 128 billion baht this year and 141 billion baht in 2027. It said higher revenue would not necessarily mean higher profits. Schools could no longer rely on their reputation or on offering an international curriculum that many rivals also teach, it said; they would have to compete on teaching quality, specialist programmes, activities, the campus and safety.

Groups still buying

The squeeze has not deterred investors. In September Taylor's Schools, the Malaysian group that runs Taylor's International School Kuala Lumpur, bought four St Andrews International School campuses from Cognita: Sathorn, Dusit and Sukhumvit 107 in Bangkok and Green Valley on the east coast. It was the group's first move beyond Malaysia and Singapore and took it to 10 schools and about 10,000 pupils, Tes reported.

Angelina Tee, the chief executive of Taylor's Schools, told Tes that Thailand was a strong market, with demand from local families and from families moving from elsewhere in Asia. "As long as we make sure the facilities and the teaching quality justify the value proposition, we will continue to grow," she said.

For comparison, Taylor's school in Kuala Lumpur, which teaches the English National Curriculum to IGCSE for ages 3 to 16, lists MYR 55,050 for its oldest year group in 2026/27, according to its Prospectus profile.