Sataban, สถาบัน in Thai, is a word meaning “institution” and was created by Romain GROUAZEL-KRAUSS, a qualified California teacher holding a diploma in Early Childhood Education as well as a Master in Language Pedagogy ; and Laddawan THAPORN, a full time mother and independent contractor working for a variety of online companies since 2013.
From the beginning and all along, they have been supported by a small team of independent contractors from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Australia without whom this experience wouldn’t have been possible (we are especially grateful to the Australian Artist Zenon Wayne for his consistent and pro-bono work on illustrations). As a result, Sataban.com is a non-profit and non-governmental organization and, as such, aims to advise, advertise and help free of charge.
The website was first launched on March 26 2014, one year after landing on Thai territory, due to nonexistent directories of schools in Thailand to be found on the world wide web at the time. There was literally no information to be seen back then and it was extremely difficult for teachers and parents to find the right school to work for and/or to entrust with our children’s education. Romain GROUAZEL-KRAUSS was both a father and a teacher.
The primary goal was thus to inform Thai and foreign communities beyond the strict defamation laws still forbidding freedom of speech, honesty and truth. We therefore took the risk to allow ratings, comments and reviews in order to free that awaiting burden weighing on the shoulders of the whole Thai education system often offered through English teaching job vacancies posted on Ajarn.com and/or TeachAway Thailand. With this engagement taken came more educational oriented brainstorming leading to the creation of : a short novel winning contest, charts, a guide of schools and a “seal of trust“. Nowadays, Sataban aims to scaffold, advice, support, guide, reveal and raise towards the top all schools desiring to meet universal educational standards of good practices.
Here an article about Sataban from the magazine “Gavroche Thailande” (May 2015) :
