Schools & Universities in Nakhon Nayok 2026 — Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom, Piyachat Phatthana, Srinakharinwirot Ongkharak & St Teresa

Where people study in Nakhon Nayok

Srinakharinwirot University — Ongkharak campus

Public autonomous university · Ongkharak district

Srinakharinwirot University is a public autonomous university established on 29 June 1974 with around 25,000 students, and it operates two campuses: Prasarnmit in Bangkok's Watthana district and Ongkharak here in Nakhon Nayok. The Ongkharak campus carries the Faculty of Medicine and its teaching hospital, the 500-bed HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Medical Center, alongside other faculties. It is the single largest institutional presence in the province and the reason the Highway 305 corridor has a rental market at all.

St Teresa International University

Private, English-medium · Klong 14, Ongkharak

An international tertiary institution established in 2001 and accredited by Thailand's Commission on Higher Education, located at Klong 14 on the Rangsit–Nakhon Nayok Road in Ongkharak district (and also known as St Theresa International College). It teaches in English across programmes including business administration, education and English for business communication, with a multicultural student body and overseas academic partnerships. For foreign residents, it is the province's most accessible higher-education institution and its main source of English-speaking academic employment.

Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy

Royal Thai Army officer academy · west of Nakhon Nayok town

Founded by King Chulalongkorn in 1887, the Royal Thai Army's officer academy occupies roughly 3,000 rai at the foot of Khao Cha Ngok about 14km west of Nakhon Nayok town, with its own 90-bed hospital. It is a national institution rather than a local school, but its presence — and the officer and staff families attached to it — is a real part of the province's social and housing fabric.

Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School

Tri-service cadet-preparatory school · Si Ka-ang, Ban Na district

Established on 27 January 1958, AFAPS is the joint preparatory school for Thailand's service academies, teaching the equivalent of the final three years of senior high school (years 10–12). The Supreme Command relocated it to 185 Moo 5, Si Ka-ang subdistrict, Ban Na district, from 1 February 2000, and instruction there began in May 2000. Together with the Chulachomklao academy, it makes Nakhon Nayok a genuine centre of Thai military education.

Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom School

State secondary · provincial flagship · Mueang Nakhon Nayok

The province's flagship government secondary school and the one most relocating families will end up asking about, teaching M.1 to M.6 with roughly 2,765 students on a 39-rai site in Mueang district. Its history is genuinely the province's: the boys' school opened in 1917 on the right bank of the Nakhon Nayok River near the provincial hall, built for about 13,000 baht and named Nakhon Sam Songkhro, while Sri Nakhon Nayok was the province's first girls' school, originally a teacher-training school that taught weaving. The two merged on 5 August 1971 to form the school as it stands. Most importantly for a foreign family: it runs an English Program special classroom entering at M.1, alongside separate science special classrooms at M.1 and M.4 — the school's own online admissions system publishes a distinct set of admission regulations for each of the three, which is operator-own evidence that the English Program is running and recruiting rather than a legacy brochure claim.

Piyachat Phatthana School under Royal Patronage

State secondary · royal initiative · Phrommani, Mueang

The school the province's military community actually uses, and the missing piece in any account of housing around the academies. It sits at 61/3 Moo 4 on the road facing the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy in Tambon Phrommani, Mueang district, on a 72-rai site that borders the academy itself to the north and the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School to the north-west. It exists because HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was concerned that the children of soldiers, civil servants and local people had nowhere nearby to attend secondary school; it was established jointly by the Department of General Education, the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy and the province. The Princess laid the foundation stone on 26 December 1989, granted the school its name, gave her personal crown as its emblem and placed it under her royal patronage. Teaching began on 16 May 1990 with eight M.1 classes and 299 students, and it now runs M.1 to M.6, drawing on eight villages in Tambon Phrommani.

Nawamarachanusorn School

State secondary · on Highway 305 · Tha Chang, Mueang

A state secondary school at 148 Moo 1 on the Rangsit–Nakhon Nayok Road in Tambon Tha Chang, Mueang district — which is to say directly on Highway 305, the same corridor this site already recommends to foreign residents for its run to Ongkharak, the medical centre and Rangsit. If you are weighing a Highway 305 address, this is the local secondary school on your road.

Nakhon Nayok Technical College

Government vocational · degree-awarding · Tha Chang, Mueang — on Highway 305

The province's largest vocational institution, and the single biggest omission from any previous account of education here. The college's own site gives its address as 116 Moo 1, Rangsit–Nakhon Nayok Road, Tambon Tha Chang, Mueang Nakhon Nayok 26000 (037-313532, 037-639658) — which puts it on Highway 305, in the same sub-district and the same Moo 1 as Nawamarachanusorn School at number 148, a few hundred metres along the road this site already recommends to foreign residents. Its parent institute's directory names the road Chonprathan instead; we publish the college's own. It runs seventeen departments — auto mechanics, machine shop, welding, electrical power, electronics, construction and basic technics on the trade side; information technology, fine arts, accounting, sales and marketing, secretarial and general management, business computing, logistics management, hotel and tourism, and a barbering department on the other; plus general education. And, unusually for a Thai technical college, it awards bachelor's degrees.

Institute of Vocational Education, Central Region 3 — head office

Degree-awarding body for five provinces · headquartered in Nakhon Nayok

Thai vocational colleges do not award degrees in their own right: the awarding body is a regional Institute of Vocational Education, and the institute covering Nakhon Nayok has its head office in the province. It publishes its own address as 116, Nakhon Nayok Technical College, Academic Resource Building, Tambon Tha Chang, Mueang Nakhon Nayok 26000 (037-639-655), and it runs seven degree-awarding colleges across five provinces — Nakhon Nayok, Prachinburi, Chachoengsao, Sa Kaeo and Samut Prakan — offering 28 subjects between them. Nakhon Nayok Technical College holds eight of those 28, more than any other college in the institute: Mechatronics and Robotics, Electrical Technology, Manufacturing Technology, Office Management, Digital Business Technology, Accounting, Marketing, and Logistics and Supply Chain Management, all Bachelor of Technology (ทล.บ.) continuation degrees. Two things follow that no page here has said: the familiar line that a Thai technical college awards ปวช. and ปวส. certificates rather than degrees is false in this province, and a province of about 260,000 people hosts the headquarters of a five-province degree-awarding institute.

Ongkharak and Nakhon Nayok Industrial and Community Education Colleges

Government vocational · certificate level · Sai Mun, Ongkharak and Phrommani, Mueang

The provincial vocational roster — published by the technical college, which hosts the provincial vocational education office — names three government colleges: the technical college above, and these two. Ongkharak Industrial and Community Education College gives its own founding as 18 June 1997 on about 50 rai at 62 Moo 3, Tambon Sai Mun, Ongkharak district 26120, teaching auto mechanics, electrical, accounting, digital business technology, office management and basic technics; it sits inside the Ongkharak corridor this site recommends for rental supply, so the corridor has a vocational college as well as a university and a medical centre. Nakhon Nayok Industrial and Community Education College is at 88/2 Moo 8, Suwannason Road, Tambon Phrommani, Mueang — the same sub-district as Piyachat Phatthana School and the Chulachomklao academy, so the military belt has one too. Neither is a degree-awarding college; both stop at ปวช. and ปวส. certificate level.

Ramkhamhaeng University

Not in the province — nearest regional campus is Prachinburi

Thailand's big open university runs 23 regional campuses and Nakhon Nayok is not one of them; the nearest is Prachinburi. Nakhon Nayok does not appear on the published list of regional examination centres either, so unlike some campus-less provinces a distance student here does not even sit finals locally — Prachinburi and Sa Kaeo are the nearest listed centres. Examination centres do change from year to year, so confirm against Ramkhamhaeng's current registration manual before enrolling. Published as a named absence with a named alternative rather than left as an open question.

Other state secondaries & the schooling authority

Public · Mueang, Ban Na, Ongkharak & Pak Phli

The province's secondary schools sit under the Secondary Educational Service Area Office for Prachinburi and Nakhon Nayok. Beyond the three above, Mueang district also has Ubonratana Rajakanya Rajavidyalaya Nakhon Nayok in Tambon Si Chula and Mueang Nakhon Nayok School, while Ban Na district has Banna Nayokphitthayakorn School, Khao Phoem Nari Phon Wittaya and Lekthammakit Witthayakhom. Instruction across all of them is in Thai, and outside the English Program room described above a child arriving without Thai will need real support. Primary and kindergarten provision in the province is Thai-medium throughout.

Schooling questions

Are there international schools in Nakhon Nayok?

No — there is no full international-curriculum day school anywhere in the province, and searching in Thai as well as English returns none. But that negative has been allowed to stand in for the whole answer for too long, and it is not the whole answer. The province's flagship state secondary, Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom School in Mueang, runs an English Program special classroom entering at M.1, and at tertiary level St Teresa International University at Klong 14 teaches in English. What the province does not have is an IB, British or American curriculum school, so families needing a portable international qualification for school-age children still look toward Rangsit and northern or eastern Bangkok. That is what pushes most relocating families toward the Ongkharak end of Highway 305, the closest part of the province to those schools.

What is the difference between an English Program and an international school?

It matters more than the names suggest, and getting it wrong is the most common mistake families make here. An English Program, like the one at Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom, is a special classroom inside a Thai government school: it teaches much of the Thai national curriculum in English, usually with some foreign teachers, at a fraction of international-school fees. An international school teaches a foreign curriculum — IB, British, American — and issues qualifications recognised for university entry abroad. An English Program is an excellent answer if you expect to stay in the Thai system or your child is young; it is not a substitute if your child needs IGCSEs or an IB Diploma to move on. Confirm current intake and requirements directly with the school.

What universities are in Nakhon Nayok?

More than the usual answer allows. Two open-enrolment civilian universities: Srinakharinwirot University's Ongkharak campus, the largest, which carries the Faculty of Medicine and the 500-bed HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Medical Center; and St Teresa International University, established in 2001 at Klong 14 in Ongkharak, a private English-medium institution. Two national military institutions that are not open-enrolment: the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy west of the town and the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School at Si Ka-ang in Ban Na. And a third route that gets left out of every list: Nakhon Nayok Technical College awards eight Bachelor of Technology degrees under the Institute of Vocational Education, Central Region 3, whose head office is on the same site. Ramkhamhaeng University has no regional campus here — the nearest is Prachinburi.

Can you take a degree without going to university in Nakhon Nayok?

Yes, and it is the province's least-known education fact. Nakhon Nayok Technical College on Highway 305 runs eight Bachelor of Technology (ทล.บ.) continuation degrees — Mechatronics and Robotics, Electrical Technology, Manufacturing Technology, Office Management, Digital Business Technology, Accounting, Marketing, and Logistics and Supply Chain Management — awarded by the Institute of Vocational Education, Central Region 3, which is headquartered at the college itself. These are practice-track degrees entered after a ปวส. higher vocational certificate rather than straight from M.6, and they are taught in Thai. Eight of the institute's 28 degree subjects sit here, the largest share of any of its seven colleges across five provinces. The province's other two government vocational colleges, at Ongkharak and in Tambon Phrommani, stop at certificate level.

Can my children go to a Thai government school in Nakhon Nayok?

Yes. Foreign children can enrol in Thai government schools, and in a province like this it is a common and workable choice — fees are minimal and the schools are the centre of local community life. The realistic considerations are language (instruction is in Thai, so a child arriving without Thai will need real support) and curriculum portability if you expect to move on to a system that requires international qualifications. If you want an English-medium route inside the state system, the specific thing to ask about is the English Program special classroom at Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom School, which admits at M.1 and runs a separate application from the ordinary intake.

Is Nakhon Nayok a good place to study or teach?

For tertiary study and academic work, better than its size suggests. Srinakharinwirot's Ongkharak campus and its teaching hospital make it a serious place to study medicine and allied health, and St Teresa International University teaches in English and draws an international student body — which also makes it the province's main source of English-teaching and academic roles. The trade-off is everything outside campus: a thin rental market, no passenger rail, and no organised foreign community.

Where do the province's military schools fit in?

They are national institutions that happen to be based here, and they shape the province more than most people realise. The Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School at Si Ka-ang in Ban Na prepares cadets for the service academies with the equivalent of the last three years of senior high school; the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy west of Nakhon Nayok town, founded in 1887, is the Army's officer academy. Neither is an option for a civilian family, but the officer and staff households attached to them are a significant part of the local rental and housing picture in Ban Na and the western Mueang belt — and they are the reason Piyachat Phatthana School exists at the academy gates in Tambon Phrommani, founded by royal initiative precisely so that service and civil-service families had a secondary school within reach. If you are looking at housing in that belt, Piyachat Phatthana is the school your neighbours use.

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