Schools on Koh Chang.

The short version

Koh Chang is one of Thailand's largest islands, and unlike Phuket, Koh Samui or Koh Lanta it has no English-medium or internationally accredited school. We checked whether that claim survives disproof, and it does — but the true version is wider than the island. There is no international school anywhere in Trat province. Neither international-school census we use returns a Trat entry, and Thai-language searching returns only Thai-curriculum schools. Exactly 0 of the island's 5 licensed schools teach in English.

What changed in this guide is everything on the other side of that sentence. The island's schools are real, named, licensed institutions with addresses, phone numbers and in two cases their own websites — and until now this page described them collectively as “ordinary Thai government schools” and named none of them. The nearest English-medium teaching is not in Rayong; it is in Trat town, a ferry and about half an hour away. There are 2 real boarding schools on the Eastern Seaboard, not one. And the bridge everyone mentions will not carry a car until the middle of the next decade on any published timeline. Pair this with the Koh Chang cost-of-living guide and the Koh Chang hub.

The 6 settings that actually exist on Koh Chang

5 licensed government schools and one charity project. Every name below is checked against a source recorded on this page — a school's own website where one exists, a Ministry of Education service-area listing or OBEC school code where one does not.

Where each one stops

On a small island the question that decides a move is not which curriculum a school teaches but how old your child can be and still have a class to sit in. Of the 6 settings here, 3 publish or have reported an age ceiling and 3 do not publish one at all — which is itself a finding, and the reason the first item in the checklist below is a phone call.

Ban Khlong Prao School

โรงเรียนบ้านคลองพร้าว · 29/15 Moo 4, Ban Khlong Prao, Tambon Ko Chang, Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat · Tel 039 557 213 · klongprao1@gmail.com

The government school in the village BAANLYY's own areas guide names as the island's most family-oriented base — and the single most useful fact on this page for anyone assuming Klong Prao means a mainland school run. It runs the full Thai basic-education range from Anuban 1 all the way to Mathayom 3, on two sites: about 5 rai 1 ngan 92 square wa for the early years and about 25 rai for the basic-education years. The school states plainly that it is the sole service-area school for Moo 4, Ban Khlong Prao, and its published vision is built around local vocational skills under the sufficiency-economy philosophy. Instruction is in Thai.

Sourcing: Address, stage range, land area, service-area status, telephone, email and vision all read directly from the school's own ข้อมูลโรงเรียน page at banklongprao.ac.th.

Koh Chang Wittayakhom School

โรงเรียนเกาะช้างวิทยาคม · 23/6 Moo 3, Tambon Ko Chang, Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat 23170

The island's secondary school, and the only setting on Koh Chang that any source places as running to Mathayom 6 — meaning it is the only route on the island to a Thai upper-secondary qualification without leaving for the mainland. It sits under the secondary service area office in Chanthaburi, not the Trat primary office, which is why it is easy to miss in a search filtered to Trat. Its own site publishes the Thai Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E. 2551 as the curriculum and carries school code 23010116.

Sourcing: Address, licensing office, school code and curriculum read directly from kchw.ac.th. The stage range is from provincial directories, not the school.

• The school's own public pages do not state its stage range, and the aggregated sources disagree — one provincial directory gives Anuban 2 to Mathayom 6, while a separate education dataset appears to show it topping out at Mathayom 3. We publish both positions and neither as settled. If your child's year group is the question that decides your move, this is the phone call to make first.

Wat Salak Phet School

โรงเรียนวัดสลักเพชร · Tambon Ko Chang Tai, Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat 23170 (street address not published)

The government school serving Salak Phet, the fishing community on the island's far south-eastern shore and the longest drive from the west-coast beach belt. It is the most pedagogically interesting school on the island: since the 2561 (2018) academic year, under director Nanthiya Buatri, it has run the Jitsuksa and Problem-Based Learning model developed at Lamplaimat Pattana School in Buriram, alongside its own '7C – WSLP' whole-school framework and Thai-through-literature teaching. The published day includes three separate mindfulness blocks — twenty minutes at 08:10, a fifteen-minute body scan at 12:15 and fifteen minutes at 15:30. Teaching is in Thai throughout.

Sourcing: The 7C–WSLP model, the Jitsuksa/PBL adoption date, the director's name and the daily timings come from the school's own write-up published by Thailand's Education Sandbox (พื้นที่นวัตกรรมการศึกษา, OBEC). Sub-district, OBEC code and staff/roll figures come from provincial directories.

• Directories give roughly 18 teachers and 258 students. That figure is not on any page the school itself publishes, so treat it as indicative rather than current.
• We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.

Wat Watchakham Kotchathawip School

โรงเรียนวัดวัชคามคชทวีป · Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat (street address not published)

A small government school beside the temple of the same name at Ao Salak Khok, on the quiet mangrove-lined east coast rather than the resort strip. It is the smallest setting on the island by a wide margin. For a family, its practical significance is not enrolment but geography: it is a reminder that the east coast is populated, served and lived in year-round, which is not the impression the west-coast beach guides give.

Sourcing: OBEC school code and licensing office from provincial directories; the Ao Salak Khok location is corroborated by island gazetteers listing the temple it adjoins.

• Directories give roughly 6 teachers and 87 students. Not published by the school, so indicative only.
• We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.

Wat Khlong Son School

โรงเรียนวัดคลองสน · Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat (street address not published)

The government school at Khlong Son, the bay closest to the ferry piers and the first settlement most arrivals pass. If a family's routine involves regular mainland crossings, this is the school on the shortest side of the island for it — a point our own areas guide already makes about Klong Son as a place to live, without ever mentioning that it has a school.

Sourcing: Existence and licensing office from provincial directories and the Trat schools register.

• No OBEC ten-digit code was recoverable for this school from a source we could read directly, and it publishes no website. Its existence is well attested; its details are not.
• We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.

Cambodia Kids Care (CKC)

ดำเนินการโดยมูลนิธิ Studybuddies · Klong Prao, Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat (no published street address)

Koh Chang's resorts and construction sites are largely staffed by Cambodian workers — by one long-running island source, around 8,000 people. Those employed without a work permit cannot access the benefits that come with one, and in practice their children often do not enter the Thai school system. Cambodia Kids Care exists to fill that gap: a simple thatched-roof school running every weekday from 08:00 to 15:00 for up to fifty children aged four to fourteen, teaching in both English and Thai, with a lunch, a safe place to be while parents work, and older children mentoring younger ones. It has one permanent teacher, Uan, who has been there since it opened. It is funded entirely by donations — it came close to closing in 2015, and its running costs work out at about one US dollar per child per school day. Visitors are welcomed to teach for a day or a month, and practical skills are as useful as classroom ones.

Sourcing: Founding (mid-2008, by a Dutch couple), the Studybuddies Foundation's role, hours, age range, roll, teaching languages, funding history and the contact route are from I Am Koh Chang's long-running page on the project, maintained on the island.

• The project's operating name is Cambodia Kids Care; Studybuddies is the foundation that runs it. Guides that call it 'Study Buddies school' — including this one until August 2026 — are naming the charity, not the school.
• It is not an accredited school and is not a schooling route for a relocating foreign family. It is included here because it is real, it is the honest answer to 'what else is there', and it is worth supporting.

Which way you drive

Every English-language guide to schooling near Koh Chang — this one included, until August 2026 — sends families west: Rayong, then Pattaya, then Bangkok, at two and a half, four and six hours respectively. That advice is not wrong so much as incomplete in an expensive way. The nearest English-medium teaching of any kind is roughly 40 km east-ish, in Trat town, about half an hour from the ferry pier a Koh Chang family already uses every time they leave the island. It is not an international school, and this page will not dress it up as one. It is a government English Programme, and it is the closest thing to English-medium schooling within reach of a daily or weekly routine.

West of the island, the second correction is that there are 2 substantial boarding schools on the Eastern Seaboard, not one. BAANLYY's own Pattaya schools data has carried both for months; this guide named only Regents.

The English Programme catch — cost is not access

Thai government English Programmes are the affordable answer that guides across the country recommend without explaining how you get in, and the omission decides the question for most newly-arrived foreign families. At Satri Prasoetsin in Trat town, entry to the English Programme is at Mathayom 1 and Mathayom 4 only, on the national admissions timetable, and selection is by examination administered in Thai. There is no rolling mid-year intake. A family arriving in October with a thirteen-year-old who does not read Thai is not choosing between this and an international school on grounds of price — the route is closed to them this year regardless of budget, and opens at the next national intake if the language gap can be closed.

The same caveat applies to the island's own schools. They are open to foreign children and effectively free, but they teach the Thai national curriculum entirely in Thai. That works for a child young enough to immerse or already fluent, and it is not a substitute for an English-medium education for a teenager arriving mid-way through secondary school.

The bridge — and why it should not shape your decision

A sea bridge to Koh Chang is a genuine, funded-to-study government project, and it is nowhere near being a road. It matters here only because a family weighing a mainland school run will be told about it, so the tense has to be exact.

The two published timelines disagree by a year on every milestone, so we print both rather than pick one. On either, a five-year-old starting school on Koh Chang today will have left school before the bridge opens. And when it does open, note where it lands: the east coast, north of Dan Mai — so a family living at Klong Prao or White Sand Beach would still start a mainland school run with a drive across the island.

The homeschool and online route

Homeschooling or an accredited online curriculum remains the mainstream route for foreign families on Koh Chang, for the structural reason set out above rather than by preference: no English-medium school exists on the island or in the province. It works best paired with the long-stay expat community around Klong Prao and White Sand Beach, local tutors and informal co-op-style meetups. Two things are worth doing properly before you rely on it. Research Thailand's registered home-education route, which is a real legal pathway with real paperwork rather than an absence of one. And check your chosen curriculum's accreditation and, critically, its examination centre arrangements — an online British or American programme is only as useful as your ability to physically sit the examinations, and the nearest centres are on the mainland. Budget for the online curriculum, examination entry fees, and the travel and accommodation each examination series will cost.

We do not publish per-school fee figures anywhere on BAANLYY. Directories routinely disagree with each other by tens of thousands of baht for the same school in the same year, and any number we printed would be stale within months. Request each school's current schedule directly. BAANLYY receives no placement fee from any school named on this page.

Where families base themselves

Koh Chang has no urban public-transport network — families get around by scooter or car, with shared songthaews on the main road, and a mainland school run means the ferry. Where you live still matters, and now that the island's schools are named it matters in a more specific way than before:

See the full Koh Chang areas guide for rents and lifestyle by neighbourhood, and the getting-around guide for realistic ferry and mainland travel times.

Before you commit — always confirm

• Ask each island school directly which year groups are actually running this year, not which the curriculum allows. On an island this size a stage can exist on paper and have no class in it.
• If you are counting on Koh Chang Wittayakhom for upper secondary, confirm the top year group before you sign a lease. Its own site does not publish its stage range and the directories disagree.
• For any Trat-town English Programme, ask for the entrance-examination date and what level of Thai is expected. The intake windows are Mathayom 1 and Mathayom 4 and they are fixed to the national timetable.
• For any Eastern Seaboard or Bangkok school, ask about boarding explicitly and get it in writing. Directories in this region record boarding that turns out to belong to a different campus of the same group.
• Drive the route you are actually planning, at the hour you would actually drive it, including the ferry queue. Ferry queues at Koh Chang run to several kilometres on long weekends and holidays.
• Do not plan around the bridge. On every published timeline, a child starting school on Koh Chang today will have left school before it opens.

How to check a school you were told about actually exists

AI-written school listicles now invent schools, and they do it most freely for exactly the places where real information is thinnest. Researching this page turned up a “Anuban Ko Chang School” that appears in no Ministry of Education register and is almost certainly a garbled reference to Anuban Trat, a real school 40 km away on the mainland. It is not listed above, because it does not exist. Run anything you are told through this test:

• Does it have its own website on its own domain — not a directory profile, not a Facebook page alone?
• Does it publish a findable street address you can put in a map and see a school at?
• Does the published phone number answer, and does someone there confirm the year groups?
• Does the homepage carry a closure, merger or rebranding notice? Directories lag these by a year or more.
• For Thai schools: does it appear in a Ministry of Education register — an OBEC school code, a service-area office listing — under the district you were told it was in?

What we could not confirm

5 of the 6 island settings and 4 of the mainland routes carry an open question. We publish them rather than smooth them over, because on an island this size the gaps are the useful part.

• Koh Chang Wittayakhom School: The school's own public pages do not state its stage range, and the aggregated sources disagree — one provincial directory gives Anuban 2 to Mathayom 6, while a separate education dataset appears to show it topping out at Mathayom 3. We publish both positions and neither as settled. If your child's year group is the question that decides your move, this is the phone call to make first.
• Wat Salak Phet School: Directories give roughly 18 teachers and 258 students. That figure is not on any page the school itself publishes, so treat it as indicative rather than current. We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.
• Wat Watchakham Kotchathawip School: Directories give roughly 6 teachers and 87 students. Not published by the school, so indicative only. We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.
• Wat Khlong Son School: No OBEC ten-digit code was recoverable for this school from a source we could read directly, and it publishes no website. Its existence is well attested; its details are not. We could not confirm the stage range from a source the school controls, so we do not state one.
• Cambodia Kids Care (CKC): The project's operating name is Cambodia Kids Care; Studybuddies is the foundation that runs it. Guides that call it 'Study Buddies school' — including this one until August 2026 — are naming the charity, not the school. It is not an accredited school and is not a schooling route for a relocating foreign family. It is included here because it is real, it is the honest answer to 'what else is there', and it is worth supporting.
• Satri Prasoetsin School — English Programme: Entry is at Mathayom 1 and Mathayom 4 only, on the national admissions timetable. There is no rolling mid-year intake, so a family arriving in October cannot simply enrol. Selection for EP and special classrooms is by examination administered in Thai. Cost is not access — this route is realistically open to children who already have working Thai, regardless of what a family can pay. Trat Trakarn Khun School (โรงเรียนตราษตระการคุณ), also in Trat town, is reported by tutoring services to run an EP special classroom. We could not confirm that from the school's own site and so do not publish it as fact — but it is worth asking about alongside Satri Prasoetsin.
• Regents International School Pattaya: Weekly or termly boarding is the realistic pattern from Koh Chang. This is not a commute — treat any guide that implies otherwise as untested.
• Rugby School Thailand: Runs IGCSE and A-Level. It does not offer the IB Diploma, so if the IB is the requirement, this is not the school.
• St. Andrews International School, Green Valley: This guide previously placed the campus 'roughly 25 minutes from Rayong town', which understates the journey from Koh Chang's direction. Ban Chang is west of Rayong city, on the way to Pattaya — so the drive time this page gives for Rayong does not apply to this campus. It is a Cognita school, not a Nord Anglia one. The two are routinely confused in Eastern Seaboard listings. Because boarding is unverified, a family choosing this school is realistically choosing to move off Koh Chang, not to commute or board.

Koh Chang schools questions

International schools near Koh Chang

International schools in and around Koh Chang, ordered by distance from the city centre and sourced live from Google Maps. Ratings and review counts update automatically — tap any name for directions, hours and contact details.

Distances are straight-line from the city centre, for rough comparison only. Listings are provided by Google and are not endorsements. BAANLYY does not manage these businesses.

Sources & References

• Ministry of Education, Thailand
• Ban Khlong Prao School (โรงเรียนบ้านคลองพร้าว) — school information page
• Koh Chang Wittayakhom School (โรงเรียนเกาะช้างวิทยาคม) — official site
• Wat Salak Phet School — case study published by Thailand's Education Sandbox (OBEC)
• Satri Prasoetsin School, Trat (โรงเรียนสตรีประเสริฐศิลป์) — official site
• Cambodia Kids Care / Studybuddies Foundation — I Am Koh Chang
• The Koh Chang Bridge: news and updates — I Am Koh Chang (August 2026)
• Thailand plans sea bridge linking Koh Chang to mainland by 2035 — Khaosod English (July 2026)
• Regents International School Pattaya — official site
• Rugby School Thailand — official site
• St. Andrews International School, Green Valley — official site

Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.