talisman01

When I first arrived at my rural school just over three years ago there was no internet though I was told they had tried a satellite system but it was down more often than not. I suggested long range wi-fi and went with the Director to the nearest TOT office about 60km away to see if they could arrange it. An engineer called at the school to days later so check the feasibility of the idea and declared it do-able.

Since then, the school's wi-fi is beamed from a larger village about 10km away and the signal is picked up by an aerial TOT erected on an old pylon in the school from where it is distributed around the school with excellent results. The initial work was free and school pays about 2000 baht per month for the service. About three months ago the wi-fi stopped working in part of the school. TOT came promptly and after an inspection said rainwater had got into one of the router boxes. I am not sure what they did but it was fixed quickly and all has been well ever since.

Talisman

I just thought I would share this with you but I am also wondering if your school is going, or has gone through, the same pain.

I work in a provincial school in an Isaan village. My school is one of twelve such schools in my province. All twelve schools, and I understand all government schools also, and similar provincial/government schools throughout the country, are in the process of being assessed and evaluated. The inspectors, three apparently, are coming from Bangkok and will begin the assessment of my school a week today.

My school was informed about the forthcoming inspection almost three months ago. Since then, a two-person provincial team has visited the school to check that all the administrative files and folders were in order. They were but, even so, three teachers were despatched to Bangkok to attend a big three-day seminar recently, attended by teachers and Directors from across Thailand, at which they were told to do certain paperwork this way and not that way so ma ny things had to be changed.

Since then, the pace of getting reading has hotted up considerably. A lot of money is being spent on environmental work to make the schools grounds and flower beds etc look nice and well loved - they have never received such TLC before! Students and frantically decorating classrooms while all classes have been suspended. As of today, we now have some students playing the national anthem on Ankalungs at assembly and students have been informed about a newly create school motto, teachers are busy doing last minute projects to have something to show, and lesson plans even have to be created for a full academic year....and so it goes on.

The inspectors will be scrutinising the admin folders and files, checking out all the facilities (there are few!!), checking out the environment, sitting in on at least one class of each teacher, asking random students things such as the new motto etc etc.

I have been at my school for just over three years and I can't help wondering why, if all this TLC work is deemed necessary, why did it take the threat of an inspection to get it done when, IMO, it is far easier to keep things looking good rather than getting there from scratch.

If your school has been evaluated, how did it go ? If your school didn't pass - a nearby school failed and will have to be re-evaluated later - what was the Thai staff reaction ?

Talisman

In passing, I have just received my new UK passport from HK. My one year Non O Multiple Entry visa is in my old passport. Further to the above posts, a couple of years ago, and with a similar visa, I got a 90-day extension to stay in Thailand by doing a visa run a few days before the visa expired but all that was in my old passport.

Would this method of getting a 90-day extension still work if my soon-to-expire visa is in my old and full passport with the 90-day stamp having to be placed in my new passport ?

Talisman

may I ask what proof of residence did you show to get your new passport ?

No proof of residence was asked for

Talisman

In passing, I have just received my new UK passport from HK. My one year Non O Multiple Entry visa is in my old passport. Further to the above posts, a couple of years ago, and with a similar visa, I got a 90-day extension to stay in Thailand by doing a visa run a few days before the visa expired but all that was in my old passport.

Would this method of getting a 90-day extension still work if my soon-to-expire visa is in my old and full passport with the 90-day stamp having to be placed in my new passport ?

Talisman

My school is deep in the sticks and receives a long range ToT wifi signal originating some 10km away via an aerial atop a small old pylon. The signal is then distributed around the school and the strength is good. The day after I went to the nearest Tot office about 60km away an engineer came to see if long range wifi was possible and about three weeks later it was set up and running.

I was in Yangon when the bomb at Traders went off. Local reports have stated that the chief suspect/s responsible had stayed in the affected room prior to the injured American lady and her family checking in. If this is really how it happened then it suggests the act was random and not targeted and probably designed to scare more than anything else.

Interestingly, Burma/Myanmar changed over from driving on the left to driving on the right in 1970.

I have a teacher friend who has to report every 90 days at the Sakon Nakhon Immigration Office. For a variety of reasons he was late reporting but mainly because he had to renew his passport which took far longer than he was told it would. He reported at Immigration last week even though the paperwork from school will not be completed until tomorrow (Monday). At Sakon Nakhon he was told that the daily fine of 500 baht included weekends but as he will be more than six weeks late by the time he returns tomorrow with his paperwork he will be fined the maximum amount which is 15,000 baht, in other words his (or any) fine will not exceed this.

I agree with the above post. At my Isaan school a great deal of time and effort goes into implementing the dress code. At assembly two mornings ago, for example, all students violating the code - mainly students who had lost items of their scout uniform or wear wearing whitened brown plimsolls - were hauled up in front of assembly, given a verbal dressing down and had to run a few times round the school square. A couple of weeks ago there was a blitz on haircuts. About one third of the students were deemed ok, the rest, pooying and poochai, had to line up for a haircut. First, one of the several teachers having a go, each student got a rough cut, then one of the students whose father is a barber, gave each student a final more presentable cut. These are but two examples, but it happens in various forms almost every assembly and beatings happen often. I just wish as much effort was put into ensuring students attended class, that teachers taught the classes they are supposed to teach and that those teachers too lazy to even go to their classrooms were sacked forthwith. In passing, I have come to realise how very hard it is to sack a Thai teacher.

I witnessed the first stage of this tragedy; it was easily visible from the Kranuan to Khua Mek road where I was travelling in a car.The Banfai rose up powerfully but was spiralling as it went up. Way short of the kind of heights these rockets can attain, and still firing strongly, it did a u-turn and plummeted straight down towards the crowd which I could not see, but having attended this festival myself two years ago, I knew were likely to be there. Nor could I see the explosion that followed. Local people have told me that they scattered as much as they could but many were unable to avoid the deadly explosion.

I asked myself this question two weeks ago when I was in Global House to buy a water heater/shower unit. Like you, I had never heard of the

Camarcio brand and decided against it on that basis. I eventually bought a Panasonic water heater though I had heard of and have used showers by Joven and Stiebel.

In passing, I had to search hard to find an experienced quality electrician to install my water heater, including putting in a proper earth, and I am very happy with the result.

Talisman

I have used Udon Thani airport many times over the last three years, most recently in March this year, and as far as I know there is no bus departing from the airport to Vientiane. However, if you get a taxi or tuk tuk into the city and go to the No.1 or Central bus station - this is the one very near to Central Plaza - there are buses that go direct to Vientiane though I do not know how often they run.

An alternative, and perhaps more flexible option, it to tell the taxi or tuk tuk driver you want to get a bus to Nong Khai. These go regularly from a separate departure point (ie NOT the No.1 or No.2 bus stations) about a 10 minute m/c ride from Central Plaza.

At Nong Khai bus station simply get a tuk tuk to the Friendship Bridge border crossing, exit Thailand via Passport Control, pay 20 baht for a bus ticket at the desk and hop on the next bus which will take you to the entry point into Laos where you will have to get a Laos visa on arrival. Then get a taxi into Vientiane city.

I hope that helps

Talisman

I am a teacher and live in Isaan. School rolls in my province, and I assume others too, are falling. How low do student numbers need to be before it is uneconomic and impractical to continue ? What this article and the original Ministry announcement failed to mention is that there is already a policy of closing schools if the school roll persists in falling. My school director where I taught in Khon Kaen province was involved in helping with such closures.

I come from the UK where such closures also happen. I used to live in a small village in Cheshire where there was a good but small school but over the years pupil numbers diminished to a point where despite dedicated teachers a decision was taken to close it down. Thereafter any pupils from the village were picked up by minibus and taken to a another far larger village about 5 miles away.

No one wants to see their own school close. I had a conversation on this topic about three months ago because students number in my own, current, school have been dropping for more than ten years. The evidence for this is easy to find on the status display boards so many schools have on office walls. For the last three years I have been part of a team that tours round nearby schools to attract more M1 and M4 students to my school at the start of each new academic year. We put a lot of thought and effort into the tours because we needs the students; apart from anything else more students means more money for the school and with a bigger budget we can do so much more. But, as I said, school rolls are dropping everywhere and students have choices about which school to attend and the competition for new admissions is getting more intense.

Thai tourism operators want the ministry to make bilingual signs...

A good start - I presume Thai and English like some street signs. But why not Chinese, Russian, and more?

Having just spent one or two weeks in Chiang Mai, in Pai and in Chiang Rai I have witnessed many Chinese, Russian and other nationalities making their tour/travel arrangements in English rather than in their own languages confirming, if on needed to, the universality of English so more Thai/English signs would indeed help everyone.

Check today's date!!

Thanks again....all my settings are as suggested so far but the DNS configuration problem still persists unfortunately

Jakebkk - I am with TOT

BlackPuddingBertha - thanks, i omitted to mention before that my setting were already on automatic. I have just checked again and they still are.

worgeordie - I cleared my cache but the problem remains

The other suggestion was...

First thing to check is if the DNS servers are configured manually in your WiFi and lan adapters settings. Put them on automatic if they are.

Also possible that DNS resolver components became damaged, run sfc /scannow from the command prompt run as administrator.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have just run this and there seems to be a corrupt file somewhere. The scan result was this...

Beginning verification phase of system scan.

Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was

unable to fix some of them.

Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.

For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

C:\Windows\system32>

Do you know how can I repair the corrupt files ?

I hope someone can help me get rid of a really annoying problem.

I am having great difficulty connecting to the internet on my laptop. There are two options where I work: one is to connect via wi-fi to a wall-mounted router. The other way is to connect to the same router using a cable. Now, when I try either option it fails to connect and when I diagnose the problem the answer in both cases is always that 'Windows has found a DNS configuration problem that cannot be repaired automatically.'

The strange thing is that colleagues in the same and next door offices can connect via the same router with no problem so it seems that the problem is within my laptop, not the router. Not so long ago I was able to connect to the internet via wi-fi via the same router myself but then suddenly this problem started and nothing I have tried to resolve it worked.

I am using a laptop with Vista and an SMC router.

I'm just hoping a DNS expert reads this!

Another option would be volumteering

I have been a volunteer in Thailand for two years now. Assuming you are not already in Thailand, you will need to make contact with a volunteer organisation based here in Thailand which will supply you with the supporting documentation needed which, in my case, amount to four A4 pages in Thai as well as a letter in English addressed to Visa Section of the Thai Embassy or Consulate you deal with in your country. This letter states my name, DoB, passport number, the name of the volunteer organisation and the dates of the period I am volunteering for, a description of the work I do, and a request for the issuance of a multiple entry non-immigrant O visa.

On receipt of these documents, your application form, passport and fee the Embassy will issue you with your visa. As a volunteer you will not be paid so you are not deemed to be working.

Travelbag are very good and I have bought year-long tickets from LHR-Bkk before from them

I always stay at the Heritage Bangkok, soi 3, Narathiwas Road, Silom which is very close to Chong Nongsi BTS station but if you prefer Sathorn they have a sister hotel there as well.

A student at my school has recently been "expelled" for using and small time dealing drugs. It just depends on how this is done and if the family/community agree with the action a school takes.