How does Thailand choose its IBO team?

Students sit a selection exam for a regional POSN centre, attend camps there, and the centres nominate students to the national Thailand Biology Olympiad final each April. The best performers are then considered for a national camp run by IPST, which selects the four students who go to the IBO. The sources we could read do not give the numbers at each step.

Who organises the Thailand Biology Olympiad?

The POSN foundation (สอวน.) runs the centre camps and the national final with host universities, and the IBO lists IPST (สสวท.), under the Ministry of Education, as the appointing institution that runs selection together with POSN and 13 regional centres.

The IBO's directory says Thai citizens in secondary school in Thailand, aged 14 to 18. POSN's own biology page, which we read in Thai, does not state eligibility, so we cannot confirm the current rule.

Is this guide written by a Thai participant?

No. It is an outline of the official picture from published sources, with tips from BiOGuide. We are looking for a Thai olympiad participant or coach to write a firsthand guide and replace this one.

Thailand Biology Olympiad (TBO): Official Outline of the Path to IBO

Thailand sends four students to the International Biology Olympiad (IBO). According to Thai news reports, the 2026 team won three silver medals and one honourable mention at the IBO in Vilnius, Lithuania (12 to 19 July 2026), and an embassy page reports one gold, two silver and one bronze for the 2024 team.^5,6 This page outlines how the path to that team works according to the sources we could read. It is a map of the structure, not an insider’s account of what the exams feel like. Most national pages are in Thai, so many details rest on our own translation.

Programme: Thailand Biology Olympiad (TBO), part of the POSN academic olympiad programme (สอวน. ชีววิทยา); the IBO lists it as the "THAI Biology Olympiad", established 1991¹
Organiser: POSN with 13 regional centres, and IPST (สสวท.) for the final team camp^1,2
Who can enter: Secondary school students in Thailand; the IBO says aged 14 to 18¹
Stages: Centre selection exam, centre camps, national final, IPST national camp, IBO team of four
Official website: posn.or.th for the centre stages; the IBO also lists olympic.ipst.ac.th, which did not load for us
Language: Thai for the national programme; the IBO itself is in English

The path at a glance

Stage	What happens	How sure we are
Centre selection exam	An exam in August for entry to a regional POSN centre; registration opens in July	Medium: POSN’s Thai page, our translation
Centre camps	Camp 1 in October and Camp 2 in March for those who pass	Medium: POSN page; the IBO page gives a different order
National final	The 13 centres nominate students to the Thailand Biology Olympiad each April, hosted by a different university	Good for 2025 and 2026
IPST national camp	Top performers are considered for a camp that selects the IBO team	Medium: the IBO page and POSN agree it exists, details are old
IBO team	Four students, with a delegation that also includes teachers and officials	Good: news and the IBO agree on four

Stage 1: the centre selection exam and camps

POSN’s biology page says there is a selection exam in August, with registration opening in July and results around September, and that students who pass attend Camp 1 in October and, if they pass that, Camp 2 in March.² The page does not state eligibility, exam format or team size. The IBO’s directory describes the early rounds differently and says about 12,000 students took the first round, an undated figure.¹ We do not know where the differences come from, and they are listed in the box below.

Stage 2: the national final

Students nominated by the centres compete in the national Thailand Biology Olympiad. The 22nd edition was held from 4 to 8 April 2025 at Walailak University with 100 students from the 13 centres, plus students nominated by IPST, and awards of gold, silver and bronze.⁴ The 23rd edition ran from 5 to 9 April 2026 at Mahidol University, Salaya, and the 24th is to be hosted by Ubon Ratchathani University.³ Both host universities say that top performers go on to the IPST camps that select the IBO team.^3,4

Stage 3: the IPST national camp and the IBO team

The IBO’s directory says IPST runs a national camp and competition at universities in April and May, using true or false, multiple choice, short answer and essay papers, and that this selects the final team.¹ The page is undated, so check the timing. The 2026 delegation to Vilnius is reported as four students plus six adults: a leader, a deputy, two assistants, a POSN representative and an IPST team manager.⁵

Points for an Author

If you went through this programme yourself, these are the points we most need you to settle. They are grouped here so that nothing uncertain is buried in the text above.

Where the sources disagree

The first stage. The IBO’s directory puts the first round at POSN Camp 1 in October with no separate exam, and lists four rounds while saying “five”.¹ POSN says there is an August selection exam before the October camp.² They may describe the same programme, and the IBO page is undated, but we could not reconcile them.
Registration timing. The IBO page says application information is published in June and July,¹ and POSN says registration opens in July.² A university centre notice seen only in a search result gave 19 June to 19 July 2025, which we did not open, so treat it as unconfirmed.
Programme names. Mahidol and Walailak call the national final the Thailand Biology Olympiad,^3,4 while the IBO lists “THAI Biology Olympiad”.¹ We take these to be one programme; the Thai pages are our translation.

Gaps a firsthand author could fill

Eligibility, grade levels, exam format and language for each current stage, which POSN’s page does not state.
How many students enter, how many reach the national final and how many go to the IPST camp.
How the four IBO team members are chosen at the IPST camp, and how that camp is run.
Registration method: online, through schools, or through the centres.
The 2025 IBO medals for Thailand, which we could not find, and what students wish they had known.

A firsthand author can settle every one of these points. If that could be you, email us or read how it works.

BiOGuide tips for students aiming at this path

These are general tips from BiOGuide, not advice from a Thai participant, and they apply to any student aiming at an IBO team.

Train for the international format early. The IBO papers are in English and test reasoning on data and experiments, not only recall. The IBO preparation guide explains the format, and past IBO papers are in our practice papers.
Practise the practical side. The centre camps and the national final include practical work, so learn the lab techniques as well as the theory. Our notes on practical skills are a start.
Build the core theory. Work through cell and molecular biology, genetics and plant physiology first.
Learn the English terms. Even if you study in Thai, learn the English names of structures, processes and methods, because the IBO papers are written in English.
Use the official channels for anything dated. Registration windows, camp dates and host universities change every year. POSN and IPST decide, not us.

Official links and sources

International Biology Olympiad, country page for the THAI Biology Olympiad. ibo-info.org. The page is undated and likely out of date in places, so we use it for structure only.
POSN foundation, biology olympiad page (in Thai, our translation). posn.or.th
Mahidol University Faculty of Science, news on the 23rd Thailand Biology Olympiad, April 2026 (in Thai, our translation). science.mahidol.ac.th
Walailak University, news on the 22nd Thailand Biology Olympiad, 31 March 2025 (Thai page). wu.ac.th
Thai Post, 19 July 2026, on the 2026 IBO team and results (in Thai, our translation). thaipost.net A Daily News report of 5 August 2026 gives the same medal count: dailynews.co.th.
Royal Thai Embassy in Astana, 16 July 2024, on the 2024 IBO medals. astana.thaiembassy.org

The IBO’s listed IPST site, olympic.ipst.ac.th, refused our connection, so we could not read IPST’s own current pages. We found no official IBO results table for Thailand, so the medal figures come from news and embassy pages.

This outline was last checked on 8 October 2026 and will age. Spotted an error or out-of-date detail? Email r6394175@gmail.com.