Shinawatra University (SIU) is a private university in Thailand with its main campus in Bang Toei, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province. Its registered address is 99 Moo 10, Bang Toei, Sam Khok, Pathum Thani 12160, Thailand. Thai higher-education records and SIU institutional planning records support 27 December 1999 as the university’s establishment date.
The university’s recent history includes a documented change of institutional name. Shinawatra University became Metharath University in 2022 and returned to the Shinawatra University name in 2024. The restoration of the Shinawatra University name took effect on 19 February 2024. The Metharath University name therefore remains relevant to older government records, academic material, certificates, programme records, and archived university pages produced during that period.
SIU operates within Thailand’s private higher-education system. Records maintained by the Office of the Permanent Secretary under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) identify the institution within the country’s private higher-education sector. The university provides study at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels across several academic fields.
Its institutional activities extend beyond degree teaching. SIU maintains research activity, library and electronic information services, computer resources, student accommodation, organized student activities, and a dedicated transnational-education unit. Its academic organization has changed over time, so a description based on documented academic areas is more reliable than treating any single faculty count as permanent.
| Institutional detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Official name | Shinawatra University |
| Thai name | มหาวิทยาลัยชินวัตร |
| Common abbreviation | SIU |
| Institution type | Private university |
| Country | Thailand |
| Main campus | Bang Toei, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province |
| Registered address | 99 Moo 10, Bang Toei, Sam Khok, Pathum Thani 12160, Thailand |
| Establishment date | 27 December 1999 |
| Former official name | Metharath University |
| Return to Shinawatra University name | 19 February 2024 |
| Degree levels | Bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral |
| Higher-education authority | Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation |
Shinawatra University was established on 27 December 1999. The same date appears in Thai private higher-education information and in SIU’s institutional planning records, making 1999 the appropriate establishment year for the university.
Planning for the university preceded its legal establishment. Earlier activity associated with development of the project and campus design took place before 1999, but those preparatory stages are distinct from the university’s formal establishment. The 1999 date is therefore the relevant institutional date rather than earlier project-related dates sometimes associated with the university’s origins.
OAI Education Co., Ltd. was the licensee when the university was established. Institutional and Thai higher-education records later identify Faith Star (Thailand) Co., Ltd. as the license holder, with the change recorded in 2021. This concerns the institution’s private higher-education licence and is separate from SIU’s academic identity.
Across its subsequent development, SIU expanded its academic activity across undergraduate, postgraduate, professional, and research-oriented fields. Its records also show changes in academic organization, programme groupings, research structures, and Bangkok-related operations. These changes are important when interpreting older institutional material because a faculty name, programme label, or administrative site appearing in one period does not necessarily describe the university permanently.
The university’s name history between 2022 and 2024 is a legally documented part of its institutional development.
In 2022, Shinawatra University sought permission to change its name to Metharath University. The Higher Education Commission considered the request at meeting 9/2565 on 20 September 2022 and supported ministerial approval under Section 14 of Thailand’s Private Higher Education Institutions Act B.E. 2546 (2003).
A ministerial announcement published in the Royal Gazette on 30 December 2022 confirmed the change from Shinawatra University to Metharath University. The change took effect on 25 October 2022. Metharath University was consequently an official institutional name rather than a short-lived marketing designation.
The process was reversed in 2024. At meeting 1/2567 on 16 January 2024, the Higher Education Commission supported a request to change the institution’s name from Metharath University back to Shinawatra University. The return to the Shinawatra University name took effect on 19 February 2024.
The official records establish the sequence without providing a sufficient basis for attributing motives to either change. The institution’s history is therefore best stated as a documented progression: Shinawatra University from its establishment, Metharath University during the 2022–2024 period, and Shinawatra University again from February 2024.
The name sequence also explains why government databases and archived academic records are not completely synchronized. Some records created during the Metharath University period continue to retain that name, while some administrative databases have preserved older English-name fields even after the 2024 reversion. These entries relate to the same institution rather than two separate universities.
Shinawatra University is part of Thailand’s private higher-education sector. The Office of the Permanent Secretary under MHESI maintains administrative information for private higher-education institutions, including SIU’s establishment date, address, licensee information, and institutional naming records.
Thailand’s Private Higher Education Institutions Act B.E. 2546 (2003), as amended, provides the statutory basis for private higher-education institutions. The Higher Education Commission’s handling of SIU’s 2022 and 2024 name changes explicitly refers to this legislation.
This institutional status needs to be distinguished from approval or recognition attached to individual professional programmes. Inclusion in Thailand’s private higher-education system establishes the university’s institutional position, but it does not mean that every programme automatically holds separate approval from a professional council or licensing authority.
That distinction is particularly relevant to regulated disciplines such as nursing and other health-related fields. Professional registration may depend on the exact programme, qualification, completion requirements, and rules applied by the relevant professional authority. Institutional recognition and professional recognition should therefore not be treated as interchangeable.
The same distinction applies when SIU qualifications are considered outside Thailand. Recognition of an individual award can depend on the qualification concerned, the place and mode of delivery, the date of study, and the rules of the organization assessing the credential.
SIU’s institutional governance includes a University Council. The university’s educational development planning process records that plans were presented to administrators and the University Council for approval, establishing the council’s role in institutional governance.
The university also operates through Thailand’s private higher-education licensing system. OAI Education Co., Ltd. was identified as the original licensee when SIU was established, while Faith Star (Thailand) Co., Ltd. later became the license holder.
The licence holder and the university’s academic governance should be understood as related but different parts of the institution’s structure. The private licence concerns the legal operation of the institution, while academic administration and university governance include bodies such as the University Council and the university’s academic units.
Personnel holding administrative positions can change, so the university’s enduring governance structure is more useful for an institutional profile than a list of individual officeholders.
SIU’s principal and most consistently documented location is its main campus at 99 Moo 10, Bang Toei, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province 12160.
Institutional planning records describe the campus as covering approximately 300 rai, or about 48 hectares. The figure is an institution-reported measurement of the site and provides a useful indication of the scale of the main campus.
The Pathum Thani campus is associated with the university’s teaching, administration, library, computing resources, accommodation, and subject-specific academic facilities. It is also the location consistently identified in university and Thai higher-education records, making it the clearest geographic reference point for SIU.
The university’s academic resources at the site support a range of disciplines rather than a single specialist field. General learning facilities operate alongside discipline-specific resources connected with areas such as nursing and health sciences.
The university has also maintained operations in Bangkok, although records use different terms for the function and location of these activities.
SIU material has referred to a City Campus, while institutional planning and government records have also used descriptions such as academic service center and coordination center. Different records have associated SIU’s Bangkok activity with locations along the Vibhavadi-Rangsit area and other Bangkok premises.
These descriptions establish an additional Bangkok presence but do not support treating one historical address or administrative label as a permanent definition of a second campus.
The distinction is relevant because an administrative, training, coordination, or academic-service site does not necessarily deliver every programme associated with the university. Pathum Thani remains the clearly identified main campus, while teaching and administrative functions connected with Bangkok depend on the particular academic or institutional activity involved.
Shinawatra University provides study at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Its academic material identifies activity across management, liberal arts, nursing, health sciences, psychology, and transnational education.
Programme and institutional planning records also show academic work in education, arts-related fields, public administration, law-related study, engineering and technology, economics, and interdisciplinary areas.
The university’s academic organization is not best represented by a fixed faculty total. Different official pages reflect different periods of organization, and some academic units appear on dedicated pages without always appearing together in a single university navigation structure. The more stable description is therefore based on the fields in which SIU has documented teaching and academic activity.
Management and business-related study form one part of this academic range. Liberal arts and related humanities and social fields are also represented. Health-oriented education includes nursing and health sciences, while psychology has a distinct academic presence.
Other documented areas include education, public administration, technology-related study, economics, arts-related fields, and interdisciplinary programmes. These records establish SIU as a multidisciplinary institution rather than one centered on a single professional or academic discipline.
Academic provision has changed over time, so the existence of a field in institutional records should not be interpreted as evidence that every historical programme remains continuously available under the same title or academic unit.
SIU’s academic structure includes undergraduate and postgraduate study, with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programmes represented in its institutional records and academic navigation.
The language of instruction varies by programme. It would therefore be inaccurate to describe all SIU teaching as either English-medium or Thai-medium.
The Bachelor of Nursing Science has been identified as a Thai Programme, while the Faculty of Transnational Education describes English-medium teaching with bilingual support within that faculty. Government curriculum records also include international-programme activity associated with the university.
These examples show that language is tied to the particular programme or academic arrangement rather than to the institution as a whole. This distinction is especially relevant to international applicants because an English-medium pathway in one faculty does not establish the teaching language of programmes elsewhere in the university.
The same programme-specific approach applies to entry conditions, academic delivery sites, professional requirements, and international pathway arrangements.
SIU has a distinct transnational-education function through its Faculty of Transnational Education.
The faculty is associated with articulation arrangements, dual-degree pathways, cross-border education, and international academic cooperation. Within that academic unit, English-medium teaching with bilingual support is identified as part of its delivery approach.
This gives cross-border education an organizational place within the university rather than limiting international activity to isolated agreements. It also helps explain why SIU material may refer to study pathways involving other institutions, different delivery locations, or programme structures intended for international cohorts.
Articulation and dual-degree arrangements remain programme-specific. Their existence does not mean that all students receive an additional award or participate in study outside Thailand. The exact academic outcome depends on the structure and requirements of the particular pathway.
For this reason, SIU’s international academic role is more accurately described through the functions it has established: transnational education, articulation, dual-degree activity, cross-border academic cooperation, and programme-specific English-medium teaching.
Research forms a documented part of SIU’s academic activity. Its educational development records include research work across several academic areas, including management, liberal arts, nursing, education, engineering and technology, health sciences, economics, psychology, and arts-related study.
The historical output figures attached to particular reporting periods are less useful for an evergreen institutional profile than the wider evidence that research has been recorded across several academic units.
SIU also maintains the Institute of Multidisciplinary Postdoctoral Research and Franchise Program on an official university domain. The institute represents a university-linked structure for postdoctoral research and related scholarly activity, including research networking and conference-related work.
Psychology-related institutional material also identifies academic and research structures within that field. Together with the development-plan evidence, this shows that SIU’s research activity is distributed across several parts of the institution rather than confined to one subject area.
These institutional features can be described without relying on comparative claims about research standing, publication rankings, or reputation. The defensible characteristics are the university’s recorded research activity, postdoctoral research structure, multidisciplinary participation, and scholarly networking.
The university maintains library and information services to support teaching and research. Institutional planning records refer to academic books, textbooks, journals, electronic books, online database access, and digital information services.
Because individual database subscriptions can change, the enduring institutional feature is SIU’s combination of physical library materials and electronic academic resources rather than any particular commercial database subscription.
Computer resources form another part of the university’s academic infrastructure. Institutional records refer to computer-laboratory provision, while faculty material identifies specialist facilities associated with nursing and health-related study.
The mix of general learning facilities and discipline-specific spaces reflects SIU’s academic range. Conventional teaching and computing resources operate alongside facilities required by subjects with practical or professional components.
These facilities should be understood at the appropriate institutional level. A specialist laboratory associated with one faculty does not imply that the same facility serves all academic programmes.
Student accommodation is part of SIU’s main-campus infrastructure. University records and institutional planning material refer to dormitory services connected with the Pathum Thani campus.
Accommodation provision is a university service rather than evidence that every student is automatically assigned university housing. Individual arrangements depend on the accommodation system attached to the institution.
SIU also maintains student-facing academic and administrative services. Its institutional navigation includes academic calendars, forms, student login systems, dormitory information, and organized Student Clubs.
Student Clubs provide a formal route for extracurricular participation. Their documented presence supports the existence of organized student activity without requiring broader claims about the scale or character of student life.
Together, the library, computing services, accommodation, student systems, and clubs show that SIU’s operations extend beyond classroom instruction to include the administrative and academic services required for campus-based university study.
Admissions at Shinawatra University cannot be reduced to one institution-wide eligibility formula because academic requirements differ by programme, level, and field.
Bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral study involve different prior academic qualifications, while professional programmes may have additional requirements associated with their discipline. Thai-language and international programmes can also differ in their language expectations and admissions arrangements.
This variation matters at SIU because the university operates across business-related fields, liberal arts, health disciplines, psychology, postgraduate study, and transnational education. A requirement attached to one academic unit should not be generalized to another.
Programme language also affects admissions. English-medium delivery within the Faculty of Transnational Education does not establish a university-wide English-language requirement, while the existence of Thai-medium study in another faculty does not characterize all SIU programmes as Thai-medium.
The appropriate unit for understanding admissions is therefore the individual qualification and academic unit rather than a single university-wide rule.
Shinawatra University’s institutional position within Thailand’s private higher-education system is supported by government records. Its legal name changes were considered through national higher-education procedures, and Thai curriculum records contain programmes associated with the institution under both the Shinawatra University and Metharath University names.
These records support the university’s institutional existence and its provision of degree study. They should not be interpreted as automatic professional accreditation for every programme.
This distinction is particularly important for regulated professional fields. Nursing and other health-related qualifications may be subject to requirements imposed by professional bodies in addition to the university’s institutional status.
International recognition also depends on the qualification concerned. An institution’s lawful operation in Thailand does not by itself establish that every award has identical professional or academic recognition in every other country.
The same principle applies to transnational arrangements. SIU’s Faculty of Transnational Education can administer articulation or dual-degree pathways without every SIU student automatically receiving a partner-institution qualification.
For readers assessing a regulated or internationally used qualification, the specific programme, award title, delivery arrangement, and applicable professional or credential-recognition authority are the relevant considerations.
Shinawatra University is defined most clearly by a set of stable institutional characteristics: its establishment as a Thai private university in 1999; its main campus in Sam Khok, Pathum Thani; its documented period under the Metharath University name; and its provision of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral study across several academic fields.
Its structure includes a University Council, a private institutional licence, multidisciplinary academic units, research activity, a postdoctoral research institute, library and digital information services, computing and subject-specific academic resources, student accommodation, and organized student activities.
The Faculty of Transnational Education adds a distinct cross-border academic function through articulation, dual-degree, and transnational study arrangements. At the same time, language of instruction, delivery location, professional recognition, and international pathway outcomes remain programme-specific rather than university-wide attributes.
Shinawatra University (SIU) is a private university in Thailand. Its main campus is located in Bang Toei, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province. The university provides study at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels across several academic fields.
Shinawatra University was established on 27 December 1999. Earlier planning and campus-development activity took place before its formal establishment, but 1999 is the institution’s established date.
Yes. Shinawatra University changed its official name to Metharath University in 2022 and returned to the Shinawatra University name in 2024. The restoration of the Shinawatra University name took effect on 19 February 2024. Older academic and administrative records may therefore use the Metharath University name.
Shinawatra University is a private university operating within Thailand’s private higher-education system under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation.
The university’s main campus is at 99 Moo 10, Bang Toei, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province 12160, Thailand. SIU has also maintained activities in Bangkok, although the functions and locations of its Bangkok operations have varied across institutional records.
SIU provides study at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Its academic activity includes fields such as management, liberal arts, nursing, health sciences, psychology, transnational education, education, public administration, engineering and technology, economics, arts-related study, and interdisciplinary areas.
Not all SIU programmes use the same teaching language. Some programmes are taught in Thai, while the Faculty of Transnational Education identifies English-medium teaching with bilingual support. Language of instruction therefore depends on the specific programme.
Yes. SIU has a Faculty of Transnational Education associated with articulation arrangements, dual-degree pathways, cross-border education, and international academic cooperation. These arrangements apply to specific programmes and should not be treated as university-wide features of every degree.
Shinawatra University is listed within Thailand’s private higher-education system. Institutional status should be distinguished from programme-specific professional recognition, which may be governed separately by professional councils or licensing authorities.
SIU has academic activity in professional and health-related fields, including nursing and health sciences. Professional eligibility or licensing depends on the specific programme and the requirements of the relevant professional authority.
Research activity has been recorded across several academic areas at SIU. The university also maintains the Institute of Multidisciplinary Postdoctoral Research and Franchise Program, which is associated with postdoctoral research, research networking, and scholarly activity.
SIU maintains library and information services, electronic academic resources, computer facilities, and subject-specific learning spaces. Academic resources connected with nursing and health-related study are also represented within the university’s facilities.
Student accommodation is part of the Pathum Thani main-campus infrastructure. The university also maintains student-facing academic and administrative services, including student systems, academic forms, dormitory information, and organized Student Clubs.
Admission requirements vary according to the degree level, programme, academic field, and language of instruction. SIU does not have one eligibility rule that applies uniformly to all bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programmes.
No. The university’s institutional status and programme-level professional recognition are separate matters. Regulated fields may be subject to additional requirements from the relevant professional or licensing authority.
