Another hard-hitting drama that cuts deep and plays deftly with emotion, The School (2026) (Sakdina Witthayalai) unfolds within Siam Kanjana School — an institution held up as a utopia for the heirs of influential families, yet a living nightmare for scholarship students. Here, rights and privileges are starkly divided along class lines.
Launching 2026 with unflinching intensity, one31 ushers in the Year of the Fire Horse with this biting school-set satire. The series lays bare the entrenched power of class and the deep-rooted inequalities embedded within the education system. Through the lives of its characters — students stratified into three tiers, parents polished to a veneer of perfection, and the shadowy vested interests that quietly dictate fates with ruthless unpredictability — the drama paints a chilling portrait of a system rigged by privilege.
The series unfolds within the walls of Siam Kanjana School, an elite private institution founded by the family of influential politician Chanin (played by Shahkrit Yamnarm) and run by its poised headmistress Sritra (Aff Taksaorn), his wife. Prestigious clans and billionaire families eagerly enrol their children here. For them, the school is a gilded paradise, replete with privileges and polished facilities. For scholarship students, however, it is closer to purgatory — a place where every right and opportunity is rigidly demarcated by class.
That polished façade shatters when a shocking murder takes place on campus. The victim is the father of a scholarship student, and suspicion falls on Kanthee (Tawan Panwa), a fellow scholarship boy forced into the role of scapegoat for a crime he did not commit. Sasivimol (Aom Phiyada), a lawyer and founder of a foundation for women and children, steps in to defend him. As she investigates, she uncovers evidence leading to four students — the true perpetrators. Yet justice proves elusive: they are the heirs of Chanin and of tycoon Kosin, owner of a prominent private hospital. In a world where money can recast wrong as right, can the innocent ever reclaim justice?
From the outset, the series lays bare the school’s entrenched inequality. Students are divided into three tiers according to their families’ wealth. Those from leading dynasties who donate generously wear navy ties and enjoy sweeping privileges. Light blue ties mark students whose parents simply pay tuition, granting them secondary status. Red ties identify scholarship students — those afforded the least voice and left at the bottom of the hierarchy. The colour-coded system becomes a stark metaphor for money’s dominion over morality, where justice holds little ground and the school ceases to be a sanctuary. Instead, it becomes a battleground in which adults treat children as pawns in a ruthless game of power.
The drama also underscores the formative force of family. A child’s mindset, temperament and behaviour are not born in isolation but shaped by home and environment. Raised under relentless pressure, a young mind becomes a compressed spring, primed to snap. Surrounded by violence, a child absorbs it knowingly or not. Where power is abused, entitlement takes root. The old adage “parents wrong their children” feels less like hyperbole and more like diagnosis here.
Parents in the series are rendered in varying shades of grey — some veering towards near-black, others pale but never pure white. The message is clear: no one is spotless. We are all composites of virtue and selfishness, greed and grief. What defines us is which impulse we choose to act upon. Some pursue ambition in the name of family; others act from wounds long ignored; still others compromise their morals for what they believe to be the greater good. The result is a fierce psychological contest across households, culminating in a finale as blistering as the Fire Horse year it heralds.
For viewers drawn to intense drama and investigative intrigue, The School (2026) airs every Wednesday and Thursday at 8.30pm on one31, and streams on the oneD app.
