The School Question Parents in Thailand Get Wrong | Donnah Ciempka

The most common question in every family-focused Thailand expat group is "what's the best school?" and it's the wrong place to start. I sat down with Donnah Ciempka, who spent five years as Head of School at Ascot International Bangkok, to work through what parents actually need to be thinking about, partly because I'm raising my own children here and I wanted the honest version.

We covered a lot of ground, but most of it kept coming back to the same thing: families committing to a 10 to 20 million baht education investment without running the numbers all the way through. School fees in Thailand increase two to six percent every year, employer-covered packages have largely left the picture, and what looks manageable at age four looks very different at age 14. We talked about bilingual education, why it requires a longer commitment than most families plan for, and why the timing window is narrower than people realize. Technology came up too, both as a parenting challenge and as something specific to Thailand, where what's accessible on social media operates under different conditions than what parents from Australia or the UK are used to. The point that stayed with me was simpler: kids who have never heard no or had to push through something hard are not being set up for what's ahead, and it falls on parents to hold that line. If you are raising children in Bangkok, or about to relocate here with a family, these questions come around eventually. Better to have them early.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Donnah Ciempka served five years as Head of School at Ascot International School, a leading K-12 IB World School in Bangkok. She has spent over 17 years as an IB consultant and visiting team leader across Asia Pacific, and completed three years as President of the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce (AustCham Thailand). Few people working in Bangkok's education space have her combination of in-school leadership and regional consulting experience.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnah-ciempka-4a4b31b3/

ABOUT THE HOST

I am Scott Pressimone, a Fractional Commercial Leader and Interim Country Director with over a decade of executive experience on the ground in Bangkok. I help foreign capital, founders, and CEOs bridge the gap between Western expectations and Thai operational realities.

https://www.scottpressimone.com/

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

02:15 Leaving Ascot

04:21 Expat Life With Kids

08:38 Choosing Your School Path

12:34 University Pathways Planning

14:47 Real Cost of Education

25:05 Bilingual Schools

27:41 Culture and Community

29:26 Language Proficiency Stakes

31:11 Tech in Education

35:57 Device Rules at Home

38:18 Online Safety in Thailand

40:45 Attention and Addiction

44:08 Preparing for Change

46:50 Thai Values to Learn

48:19 Find Your Tribe

49:54 Closing

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