Danes Worldwide pioneers new school concept in Bangkok

Danes Worldwide is for the first time engaging itself directly in providing education in Danish language to Danish children living in a specific location abroad by entering in a collaboration with the community school NIST International School in Bangkok and a group of Danish parents in Thailand.

Secretary General Anne Marie Dalgaard signed on Thursday 31 March 2016 an MOU with the school which included also the Danish Ambassador to Thailand as a signatory.

“It is the very first time we try this,” she told ScandAsia after the signing.

“If it works well, we may well want to implement it as a model in other countries.”

According to the agreement, the teaching material used by the teacher must be the material developed and provided by Danes Worldwide. The role of NIST will be to provide the all-important work permit for the teacher and an educational environment as the home base of the teacher. This teacher still remains to be selected and employed.

The teacher will be able to teach Danish at all the other International schools in Bangkok. The many Danish students at for instance Patana School or ISB will thereby be able to attend Danish mother tongue classes at their own school seamlessly integrated in their regular weekly class schedule.

Only Danish children whose parents are members of Danes Worldwide can join the class. The parents must also buy the teaching material from Danes Worldwide as well as pay to NIST to cover the teacher’s wages and other related expenses.

Mai Ellegaard, Bangkok representative of Danes Worldwide has been the key person working for this new offer for Danes in Thailand. On Friday, she accompanied Anne Marie Dalgaard on visits to Patana School and ISB to ensure that these schools understand and appreciate the offer they now have availabale for their Danish students.

“A critical point was, that we wanted this solution to cover all Danish children in and around Bangkok – not only international school students,” says Mai Ellegaard.

“This is now part of the deal. Both at NIST and  ISB it will be possible for Danish students – who do not attend any of those schools – to come on the specific days where the teacher is on that school and join the classes there. Many children of Thai-Danish marriages do not attend international school and they should also be covered with this solution!”

Danes Worldwide offers also an online Danish course as a separate product which many Danish parents already subscribe to. This is in particular good for children who live outside Bangkok in areas too far to be covered by the new school offer in Bangkok.

Once the Danes Worldwide school is up and running, it will also look at offering Danish education for toddlers and teaching Danish as a foreign language to for instance foreign spouses of Danish parents or as a pre-study for Thais planning to immigrate to Denmark.

Read also: NIST & Danes Worldwide Explore Creation of Community Language Programme