Until 2565 a district champion had somewhere to go. There was a regional round, and above it a national one. Three consecutive OBEC letters ended that: the competition now "สิ้นสุดที่ระดับสำนักงานเขตพื้นที่การศึกษา" — it stops at the district. The national platform that carried it, sillapa.net, has no edition after the 70th.
So for four years every district gold medalist in Isan has been the champion of a room they were already standing in. We are putting the next room back, in Khon Kaen, in the school holiday of April 2027.
สรุปสั้น ๆ
รอบที่ 1 แข่งสดที่เขตพื้นที่การศึกษาของคุณ กรรมการคือครู · รอบที่ 2 เด็กที่ได้เหรียญทองส่งคลิปมาให้เรา ฟรี · รอบที่ 3 10 คนที่ดีที่สุดมาแข่งสดที่ขอนแก่น เมษายน 2570 — เราจ่ายค่าเดินทาง ที่พัก อาหาร และเงินรางวัล ให้เด็ก ผู้ปกครองหนึ่งคน และครูผู้ฝึกสอน
Round one is in person, at your own district, judged by teachers — the competition Thailand already runs. Round two: the gold medalists send us a video. Round three: the ten best come to Khon Kaen and compete live, for prize money, with the travel paid.
Central to Isan, on the rail line and the Friendship Highway, with hotel capacity and a hall big enough for an audience. Nearly every district in the region is inside a day's bus ride. The venue is not booked yet; when it is, it goes on this page with the address.
Deliberately in the long school holiday, after ปีการศึกษา 2569 closes on April 1, 2570 and before 2570 opens on May 16 — so no child misses a lesson and no teacher has to ask for leave. After Songkran, so travel is cheap and the roads are calm. The exact weekend follows the venue.
Gold medalists in Story Telling at their own district round in ปีการศึกษา 2569, chosen from the videos. One age band in the first year — the band Ploy won in. A band a year gets added as the fund can carry it, and we will say so here before we say it anywhere else.
Isan has 78 education service areas — 61 primary offices and 17 secondary — covering 12,863 schools. Every one of them runs its own Story Telling competition, and every one crowns its own champion in each of four age bands.
"The winner from every district" therefore means 312 children. Fund each of them with one family member and their coaching teacher, and you are moving, feeding and housing 936 people for three days. At a realistic ฿2,500 a head that is ฿2.34 million before a single baht of prize money, a venue or a judge.
We do not have ฿2.34 million. We have a schoolteacher's savings. So rather than announce something that quietly shrinks later, here is the rule we are going to hold ourselves to:
The number of funded finalists is whatever the fund can carry in full — travel, hotel, family member, teacher and prize — and it is published before qualifying closes, not after. For April 2027 that number is ten, in one age band. If the fund grows, the number grows, and it grows by adding age bands rather than by thinning what each finalist gets.
A half-funded finalist is a child whose family has to find the difference, which means the prize goes to the family that can. That is the one outcome this whole thing exists to prevent, so we would rather invite fewer children and pay for all of it — and pay each of them more.
The obvious way to narrow 312 children down to ten is a provincial round. It is also the way that quietly selects for money: a provincial round is a second journey, on a school day, paid for by somebody.
So the middle round is a video. One take, phone camera, the same story the child told at their district, sent to us over LINE. It costs a bus fare of nothing. A child in a village school with one shared phone is on exactly the same footing as a child in Khon Kaen city.
Judging is blind to school and district: the panel sees an entry number, an age band and a story. We will publish the panel's names, the rubric they use, and every entry's score — by entry number, never by a child's name. The rubric is OBEC's own hundred-point scale.
There are ten places. Across 78 district offices there will be far more than ten gold medalists in ป.4–6, so most children who send a video will not travel. We would rather say that here than let a family find out by silence.
Reimbursement is a wall. A family that cannot lay out ฿3,000 in April does not travel in April, whatever we promise to send them in May. So the tickets are bought by us, the hotel is booked by us, and nobody is asked to spend their own money and claim it back.
| Who | What we cover |
|---|---|
| The finalist | Return travel from home district, two nights' hotel, all meals, and their prize |
| One family member | Return travel, the same room, all meals. A parent, a grandparent, whoever actually raised this child. |
| The coaching teacher | Return travel, their own room, all meals, and the Teacher Behind the Winner cash prize in their own name |
| Line | ฿ |
|---|---|
| Prize money to the ten children | 97,000 |
| Teacher Behind the Winner — ten coaching teachers | 50,000 |
| Travel, hotel and meals for 30 people | 75,000 |
| Venue, sound, judging panel, printing | 28,000 |
| Total | 250,000 |
Prize money splits ฿30,000 / ฿20,000 / ฿12,000 for the first three and ฿5,000 to each of the other seven, so that a child who travels eight hours to come ninth still goes home with something in their hand. Teacher prizes are ฿5,000 each, flat, because a teacher in a small school did the harder job.
These are estimates made in September 2026 against September 2026 prices. They will be wrong. When they are, the corrected figures go on the money page with the date they changed.
Every child on that stage was taught by someone — usually one teacher, in one small school, who stayed late. That teacher has a name, and in Khon Kaen we say it out loud.
Each finalist's coaching teacher is brought to the final with the child, given their own room, fed, and paid a cash prize in their own name — ฿5,000, flat, the same for the teacher of the child who comes first and the child who comes tenth, because in a village school the two did the same hard job. On the day, each is announced from the stage as that child's Teacher Behind the Winner, and goes home with a certificate that says so.
Thailand already honors the child. Nobody has ever put money, a microphone and a certificate behind the teacher who got the child there. That is the gap this award closes — and it is why the ฿50,000 for teachers is a line of its own in the budget, not an afterthought.
Decided: that it happens; that it is in Khon Kaen; that it is in the April 2027 school holiday; that qualifying is free and by video; that ten finalists compete live; that travel and hotel are paid for and not reimbursed; that every coaching teacher is funded, paid, and named from the stage as the Teacher Behind the Winner; that the budget and the scores get published whatever they say.
Not decided: the venue, the exact weekend, the judging panel, the registration mechanics, and whether the fund will stretch to a second age band. Nothing on this page is a legal offer, and no child should be told they are going to Khon Kaen until we have written to their school.
Not ours to decide: the district rounds themselves. Those belong to OBEC and to each สำนักงานเขตพื้นที่การศึกษา. We do not run them, we cannot enter your child in them, and we have no influence over their judging. All we do is read their announcements and publish the dates.
Questions, corrections, or a district date we have missed: ben@usaenglish.com. Ben reads these himself, and a correction is a favor, not a complaint.
Start at the district round. Ask your school's English teacher to enter your child in เล่านิทาน (Story Telling) at งานศิลปหัตถกรรมนักเรียน. It is free. Then send us the video.
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