LecheHombre

I've got all my (legit) documents in order, so no worries either way...

BUT, I seriously doubt that these competent / perfect English speaking officers are going to continue a "tour and will visit all schools". That sounds far too much like actual work, which I have found to be an activity that is extremely discouraged in Thailand's bureaucratic masses. More likely you, by luck of the draw, happened to be at the first place (first in what I'd wager will be a very short list) where they decided to shoot a fish in the barrel in order to put the fear of ... uh, Buddha I guess ... into the rest of us.

I predict something like this:

I comes across that you may be taking this whole teaching thing a bit too serious. As I tell people back here in the US calling people in thailand "teachers" is like calling the kid who makes fries a "chef". Pretty much anyone can do it but really your just like the fry guy only making less money.

I resemble that remark!

...In all seriousness, I agree. Although to be fair there is a legitimate and massive demand for good imported "fry chefs" around here, because when the locals try to make fries themselves they somehow end up burning down the Burger King and needing skin grafts. And to reuse an analogy that I've posted before, Khurusapha requirements for waivers / teachers licenses are rather like saying that nobody is qualified to be a fry chef unless they graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

@lostinisaan -

I've never worked for an agency myself, but I've been acquaintances with / known several guys (and a girl) who have. None of them had licenses/waivers, they all said that was not needed in their situation. Also, none of them had work permits in their possession or really knew anything about that, but it is possible that they HAD them but they were being held by their agency. I suppose that the argument could be made that they are working full-time for the agency, NOT the school, and therefore their WP would be issued wherever the agency is based. And the agency skims plenty of money each month to be able to pay off labor dept, immigration officers, etc. etc. if necessary. All in theory of course. As we all know, nothing like that ever happens here, there is no corruption in Thailand.........

Small sample size, but all of the agency people that I've known personally were *very* green / inexperienced. Several had college degrees, but none in Ed. But more had no degree at all. All were quite young; I think all that I've known have been under 22 but none as young as 18 (yet -- wouldn't surprise me in the least at this point). In all cases, the school(s) they were teaching had to pay the agency more than they were paying people with direct contracts with the school. But then they actually took home a fraction of that. Several of those that I've known were at the same school over a few different years, each taking home 22k (agency to them) out of 40k (school to agency), and the girl (a very naive American) at another school was actually through a "volunteer" agency where she got 12k paid for "expenses" and the school paid her agency somewhere in the 30-35k range.

To me, using an agency seems like a surefire way to piss everybody off. Those agency guys I mentioned taking home 22k/40k have all worked for a school near me. The same school pays direct contract teachers 35k. So, the direct contract people see the school shelling out 40k to an agency for people with NO experience and often NO degree. Fifteen percent more pay (to the agency anyway), for noobs that have no idea what they are doing. Meanwhile, the agency people are equally annoyed when they discover that the direct contract people take home about 13k more per month than they do, for doing the "same job". End result is that the direct contract guys are highly de-motivated (no, sorry, we can't pay you any more than 35k ... never mind that we pay 40k per head to the agency) while the agency hires have a *very* high rate of disappearing / doing a runner partway through the year and leaving the school in a lurch.

As a sample, that same school started off last year with 6 agency hires. By the end of the year, *1* was still there. The school is right back on the horse again though, looking for 5 more for this year. "Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results"... Although in defense of the school, I guess it boils down to rolling the dice with an agency or just plain not having any NES teachers.

Anyway, /rant OFF. I tend to agree that the whole mess makes me want to throw up...

If you work through an agency, aren't you exempt from Khurusapha licensing and don't need to get a local work permit, etc? All of the short-term agency dudes that I've known claimed that was all handled by the agency.

If paying a middle man a small cut of my salary would exempt me from all that nonsense, I'd be very tempted myself. Although, for most of the agency people that I've known, a "small cut" was actually more like 40-50% (knew some guys where a school was paying their agency 40k per month, 22k of which actually got forwarded into their hands)...

Couple of things:

1) I don't care about "slagging off a school online". I know it is against the rules to do it directly, but as long as "the names have been changed (or omitted) to protect the innocent" and you don't refer to anything (schools, individuals, whatever) directly, I honestly don't see anything wrong with it. @poochuay is right about "you never know who is watching"; a school representative or co-worker might be able to put two and two together (especially if he sees the copy of his lesson), but I don't imagine that you care very much. And I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that, as long as you accept that possibility.

2) On the other hand, while the notebook page you attached maybe isn't an awesome lesson, it isn't horrible enough that it will make those kids impossible to work with or "scar them for life" or anything. I agree with the above that it looks like a conversation / introduction roleplay activity. Grammar-Nazi stuff like missing apostrophes and punctuation could be from the student failing to correctly copy what was written on the board 100%, or maybe the teacher left them out because they didn't deem them necessary for a simple conversation/roleplay guide. "Good morning" : "Good morning too" is a bit weird, but again that could be the student forgetting to write down "Good morning to you too" or the teacher just trying to simplify things as much as possible. Even if all of those omissions / errors are the fault of a foreign teacher colleague, it isn't that big of a deal. At least everything is in the right ballpark; I've seen many things that Thai teachers have given to kids that are grammatically screwed up to the point of being nonsensical. If you want to expand on it and correct those fine points in a later lesson, you could certainly do so.

This in particular seems a bit like you're making a mountain out of a mole hill -- no offense. I've been in a situation/job here where lots of small (and plenty of medium and a few big) things that bothered me started to add up and got me disgusted with the work environment in general, which made even minor annoyances seem like BIG problems. If you're in a situation like that and sort of cruising for justifications to bail ... that in and of itself is perhaps a big hint that it may be time to move on.

I hope that doesn't come across as harsh or trolling. The high frequency of unhelpful and/or holier-than-thou troll posts on this forum sometimes make me wonder why I even bother posting here (that's probably why I don't post all that much), so I definitely don't want to come across that way. So just take the above as my 2 cents. Hope things all get sorted out.

I am wondering if the Thai alphabet is partially to blame for poor education.

I read somewhere it takes 5 years for Thai children to learn the Thai alphabet.

Rubbish. Took me 5 weeks to learn to read and write Thai.(as an adult). It's actually easier to master than the English alphabet and spelling rules. i.e...it has rules and they don't "change" ...as not the case in English.

But poor old English is bastardised with foreign input. e.g "resume" ... a French word. Not pronounced with English rules.

Overall..The Thai alphabet and spelling/tone rules are MUCH easier to learn than the English alphabet and it's mangled contradictions.

If you learned to read and write Thai in 5 weeks, you've got a much higher talent for languages (and probably a much higher motivation to learn) than the average person.

On the other hand, I 100% agree that a lot of things about Thai are easier than English. English has such weird spelling because we incorporated words from many many different languages, and all of them have different rules about what sound/phoneme different letter combinations should represent. Thai, on the other hand, has 44 consonants, 15+ vowels, and 4 tones which can very concretely and phonetically designate the proper sound of Thai words. So if one does learn the Thai alphabet properly, it is easy to read a word that you've never seen/heard before correctly / with the correct sound. That doesn't work at all in English unless one gets very very good at making educated guesses as to the root origin of English words, and even then it is spotty.

To answer the grandparent post in the quote, I personally don't believe that the "difficulty" of the Thai alphabet has any negative impact on the education system here. Whatever failings exist are systemic, not a result of the language. BUT, I think that the Thai system actually is worried about that, much more than I am. I've spoken with Thai teachers in government Anuban schools who have been told to NOT start intentionally teaching reading/writing in English until their students are in Pratom, and when I asked about that they specifically said it was because there are concerns that kids will prefer English writing to their native Thai because they think it is easier. Fortunately, as a parent in a bilingual house that thinks that concern is nonsense, I can teach my kids to read English as soon as they are ready for it; and my wife can do likewise with Thai.

The Thai alphabet has 46 consonants, 28 vowels and 5 tone marks. If you are writing how easy it is to learn the Thai alphabet please get your facts right. With your displayed knowledge about it I really doubt that you have learned it and are able to read and write Thai.

Thank you *ever* so much for pointing out my woefully inadequate comprehension of the Thai alphabet, and my pathetic mental faculties in general. I will forever be in your debt for setting the record straight. Please, I beg of you to continue to sacrifice your time and grant the gift of your resplendent knowledge to the lowly unwashed masses, such as myself. Doing so is an act of such incredible selflessness and charity, and I am sure that only criminally few individuals take the time to properly thank you for it! You must have the patience of a saint to carry on educating such an unappreciative audience.

And please, while you are at it, set the record straight for other individuals or organizations that would pass themselves off as "authorities", yet obviously don't have the benefit of your superior intellect. For example, http://www.thai-language.com/ref/consonants claims that the Thai language has 44 consonants, as I did. Idiots! The dullards at wikipedia even have the gall to claim that Thai script has "15 vowel symbols that combine into at least 28 vowel forms" and "four tone diacritics", similar to my figure of "15+ vowels and 4 tones". Please, continue to altruistically benefit all of mankind by contributing your corrections the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet to rectify those obvious errors.

Although I know that your post was made as a purely magnanimous gesture to inform those less fortunate than yourself, I am afraid that I do disagree with one portion of it; but only on a mere technicality. You said, referring to me, "With your displayed knowledge about it I really doubt that you have learned it and are able to read and write Thai." I think that given your clearly superior and logical mind, you may find upon re-reading my post that I technically never claimed to be an expert, or even fluent or near-fluent in reading/writing Thai. Nor did I imply or state anything about it being "easy to learn the Thai alphabet". I did claim that "a lot of things about Thai are easier than English", providing the example of weird spelling that uses different letter combinations for the same sounds/phonemes in English, compared to Thai being in general a much more phonetic language. If you, oh wisest and most learned among us, disagree with that claim I am sure everyone would just LOVE to hear about it.

{snip}

What I'm getting now from the new school is that because my work permit is in another district, I will have to go to Laos. I can't just cancel in one district and go to another to make another work permit. Does this make sense?

Also, they are adamant that getting a 3rd kurusapa from bkk won't be a problem :|. What do you think?

It will suck if I go to Laos, get a new non-b and come back to find I've given up my krusapa (good for another 1.5 years with current school) and will have to go back to Laos again in 3 months (meanwhile working without a work permit :|). I'm tempted to just stay at my old school, but the new school is a significantly better situation pretty much all around. Closer to the city, 100k more baht a year. Teaching one class for 15 hours instead of 15 classes for 1 hour... If I go through with it though, I want to make sure there can be a 3rd krusapa... Is this possible?

Lostinisaan covered most of this, but here's my additional 2 cents:

Having to leave the country and come back in is a situation that many people that I've known in the past near-decade of working here have had to do. So, although I don't know the exact rules (actually, I'm highly suspicious that all the rules are made up as they go along), it "makes sense" to me that they suggest that you will have to go to Laos and back in order to redo the Work Permit. Just because of precedent; I've known lots of people that have had to do that when changing schools.

They (the new school) want you to go there, so they are going to play down any chance of things not going smoothly. The reality is that it's a crap shoot. You might go in to Khurusapha and get a 3rd waiver without any issues at all, but on the other hand if you watch recent posts on these forums plenty of people claim to have at least some trouble getting a *2nd* waiver if they changed schools, don't meet the (extremely unrealistic) specifications that Khurusapha is looking for, etc. Lots of conflicting hit or miss stories about 3rd waivers, and then some reports of 4th waivers being granted without much trouble. So, in that kind of environment, don't put too much stock in what *anyone* tells you about Khurusapha -- including me and anyone else here, and certainly not the school that is highly motivated to downplay any risks.

Going to Bangkok and Khurusapha in person to ask if you will have any problems in advance would help. On the other hand, when you go back to actually get it done you might get stuck with a different officer who has a completely different interpretation of the "rules" than whoever you talked to the first time. That has happened to me personally many, many times with regards to what paperwork etc. is "required" at immigration offices; it changes with the winds, astrological alignments, and the butterfly effect...

Personally, I'd be tempted to err on the side of caution. *Especially* if you think you may be interested in staying in Thailand long-term, beyond the 2 years that a third waiver would (hopefully) get you. But again take everything, including/especially what I say, with a grain (or 10) of salt.

Waivers (the 2 year "teachers license") are tied to a school. If someone has a full 5-year teachers license, it is NOT tied to any one school, so they can switch around more easily. That could explain the Filipinos at your school.

OR, it could be that the labor office (that issues work permits) and immigration wherever you are located are willing to process work permits based on having filed for a teacher's license / waiver, instead of requiring the actual waiver/license to come back from Khurusapha. My local office was like that until recently.

{snip} I've just written my letter of resignation. Cheers-

Congrats and/or condolences in whatever amounts feel right to you, @lostinisaan. I know it can be tough to make that kind of decision, but in my experience when it seems like it *might* be time to go it is probably well *past* time, and we'll be a little more wary and cautious and end up in a much better situation after bailing out. So probably all the frustrations are a blessing in disguise.

Sincere good luck finding the greener pastures!

I wonder what's happening at the TCT lately.

As of today they're keeping an earlier promise to be a major thorn in my side. Suddenly out of nowhere they're insisting on the official docs, letter, etc. being mailed directly from my school instead of my 35 year old originals. With barely three weeks to go until my extension expires and the school being unable to backfill a subject teacher before the term starts in 2 weeks, this should be interesting.

I might end up having to fly out and come back in on a brand-new non-immigrant B visa while waiting for the dust to settle, then I get to start the paperwork (waiver, labor, extension) all over again.

Oh what fun.

That sucks, hope you can get through without drastic measures like that. I've got to try again soon also...

You'd think that having their entire board sacked by Mr. Dictator would take some of the starch out of them, but I guess the fail train is still full speed ahead.

{snip}

All I can say is, please treat people they way you'd like to be treated.

I agree 100%, but on the other hand I've known several people who have been screwed out of 1-2 months pay (for work they DID do) because they were nice and actually gave the contractually required amount of notice time. For schools that pull that kind of stuff ... what goes around comes around. That's one of the cases where a site that allowed "name and shame" would sure be nice...

"If you're on a Non-B "work" visa, the visa is tied to your job and work permit. So if you want to break it, it would require leaving the country within 7 days. "

Utter crap, visas are not tied to an employer, extensions of stay are. You only get 7 days to leave if you apply for and pay for the extension.

OK, that's probably the correct term. But an "extension of stay" is very frequently referred to as a "visa". Just like a Non-B is a "work visa", and a waiver is a "2 year teacher's license".

This has never happened to me personally, but everyone I've ever known that was on a "work visa" (Non-B "extension of stay", I guess) has reported that they had to leave the country within 7 days if their work permit was cancelled (ie., they were fired or the school realized they had done a runner). If that is wrong, sorry to the OP for the incorrect information. In either case, an explanation of the difference between an "actual visa" and an "extension to stay based on employment" would probably be more helpful than just saying it is utter crap... I think that we probably need to know more information from the OP (like how long he has been at his current school, expiration date of current contract, etc.) to give 100% correct advice/information. I think what I said is correct, given the most logical assumptions to fill in the unknowns of the OP's situation, but I could certainly be wrong. If so, please correct me and give the OP better info.

Assuming that your contract and work permit continue for a few months or more at your current school, changing will be a bit of a headache. But it depends on your visa, etc.

If you're on a Non-B "work" visa, the visa is tied to your job and work permit. So if you want to break it, it would require leaving the country within 7 days. If the next school was really on the ball and had all the paperwork done, I think it might be possible to come back in on a new work visa with them. But most likely you'd have to come back in on a tourist visa and then I believe go to Bangkok to get that converted to a new Non-B.

The teacher's license waiver is also tied to the school, and it seems that the licensing office (Khurusapha) is a bit reluctant to grant waivers beyond a 2nd-3rd in many/most cases -- especially if you have changed schools. So changing schools before that waiver runs out can screw you out of a year+ of waiver time. That, in my opinion (as a long-timer), is the biggest current deterrent to job switching before completing the 2-year span with a given school.

Those two items are the main factors to consider, in my opinion. Changing jobs might reduce your number of easy/legit years of waiver to 5 instead of 6, or even 3 instead of 4. But anyone that claims they know how things going to work with licenses/waivers 3-5 years from now is forgetting that we are in Thailand. Ask 10 people how it works now, and you'll get 15 different answers. And the visa issue is a guaranteed hassle; probably relatively minor but possibly extending on up to "nightmare" depending on what kind of mood the immigration officer(s) you deal with are in.

Breaking your current contract (assuming that it has already been extended to this school year, on up to May 2016 or so) is an issue, but frankly not as much of one as it would be in a Western country (again, just in my opinion). There is massive turnover at pretty much every school, all the time. People do runners after a final payday, all the time. Schools change up the details of your job description after you signed a contract based on a verbal or written promise/description of your job duties that then becomes completely false, all the time. Schools also try to weasel out of paying the final month(s) of your contract if you "do the right thing" and give them advance notice, all the time. Maybe that is all just half-assed rationalizing to justify what boils down to a pretty unprofessional and not-cool move, but you definitely wouldn't be the first to do it.

Bottom line, I wouldn't do it unless your current school has treated you unfairly AND you were 110% positive that the working conditions at the new school were much better. Talk to (phone/Skype/email) current foreign employees there and make sure you know what you'd be landing in.

When in Rome, avast ye matey.

NOW...This thread! Will there be any changes that will cause me to change my plans?

Nobody knows. The article in the OP speculates that things may change for the better, but doesn't have anything concrete to back up that optimism (as you already know).

Basically, in your particular situation, it seems like you've got a lot to gain and nothing to lose by going elsewhere (China or wherever else). That being said, if you haven't done it very recently, I would check your waiver status through the kurusapha webpage again. I believe that I'm currently technically on my 4th waiver, but through some combination of luck, mercy, and/or kurusapha incompetence (I suspect mostly that last one) the webpage shows me as being on my 1st. If it was accurately reporting the correct number, I think I'd be looking at other options also -- China, Korea, Oman, back to the US, etc. That's harder with a wife and kid though.

I think in your situation I'd get the hell out while the getting is good. Waiting for this place and all the relevant bureaucratic rats nests to collectively pull their heads out of their posteriors is an extremely thin hope in any kind of short term timescale (a year or two), and honestly feels like not a whole lot better than that even LONG term.

I am wondering if the Thai alphabet is partially to blame for poor education.

I read somewhere it takes 5 years for Thai children to learn the Thai alphabet.

Rubbish. Took me 5 weeks to learn to read and write Thai.(as an adult). It's actually easier to master than the English alphabet and spelling rules. i.e...it has rules and they don't "change" ...as not the case in English.

But poor old English is bastardised with foreign input. e.g "resume" ... a French word. Not pronounced with English rules.

Overall..The Thai alphabet and spelling/tone rules are MUCH easier to learn than the English alphabet and it's mangled contradictions.

If you learned to read and write Thai in 5 weeks, you've got a much higher talent for languages (and probably a much higher motivation to learn) than the average person.

On the other hand, I 100% agree that a lot of things about Thai are easier than English. English has such weird spelling because we incorporated words from many many different languages, and all of them have different rules about what sound/phoneme different letter combinations should represent. Thai, on the other hand, has 44 consonants, 15+ vowels, and 4 tones which can very concretely and phonetically designate the proper sound of Thai words. So if one does learn the Thai alphabet properly, it is easy to read a word that you've never seen/heard before correctly / with the correct sound. That doesn't work at all in English unless one gets very very good at making educated guesses as to the root origin of English words, and even then it is spotty.

To answer the grandparent post in the quote, I personally don't believe that the "difficulty" of the Thai alphabet has any negative impact on the education system here. Whatever failings exist are systemic, not a result of the language. BUT, I think that the Thai system actually is worried about that, much more than I am. I've spoken with Thai teachers in government Anuban schools who have been told to NOT start intentionally teaching reading/writing in English until their students are in Pratom, and when I asked about that they specifically said it was because there are concerns that kids will prefer English writing to their native Thai because they think it is easier. Fortunately, as a parent in a bilingual house that thinks that concern is nonsense, I can teach my kids to read English as soon as they are ready for it; and my wife can do likewise with Thai.

After nearly a decade of being personally "frustrated and often infuriated by the inconsistent and rapidly changing manner in which these measures have been introduced and enforced" ... I think it is still way too early to be even "cautiously optimistic".

I'll believe things are getting better when I see them getting better. And I'm not holding my breath.

...

My first question is, How do you people put up with this crap from the schools?

...

Second question: Can one of the teachers please tell me if 1st 4th & 5h of May are school holidays?

Third question: Is there a lot of corruption in the Education system in Thailand?

Thank you very much for reading my little rant.

1) It is really frustrating. But, in my opinion the "Thai way" of resolving nonsense like that is to smile and nod and agree to everything, and then actually do nothing. Most of the time these things are empty threats (withholding salary, MANDATORY nonsense, etc.). If it comes to a point where there is actual followthrough, it is time to move on -- but most of the time it is all posturing and hot air.

2) Where I am, 1st is NOT a holiday. The 4th and 5th ARE.

3) Let's imagine a hypothetical country. Completely hypothetical, not allegorical in any way. We'll label this place with a completely random name, not meant to allude to anything ... Let's call it "Laithand". Anyway, in Laithand there is a lot of corruption in every single position or system of power, no matter how trivial or grand and respected. School directors buy degrees to get promoted, require parents to make "donations" to various school funds in order to enroll their children, and/or charge "Native English Speaker teacher fees" to students when there are no NES employed at the school. Immigration officials will find "problems" with your paperwork that matches the requirements listed on the national immigration webpage, only to have those problems magically disappear if applicants bring "gifts" like lunch, fruit, or a few bills stuffed into an envelope.

Sometimes people living in this completely hypothetical, entirely non-allegorical country of "Laithand" honestly try to toe the line and do things by the book. Sometimes they get frustrated by the fact that there seem to be about a million different versions / interpretations of "the book", most of which contradict each other. ...And some of those people that get frustrated get a bit cynical about the whole thing and end up making long-winded, grumpy posts on Laithand web forums.

Remember, this whole thing is about a purely hypothetical country. Not a thinly disguised allegory at all.

In all the schools I have firsthand knowledge of, non-NES Europeans get/got the exact same salary (32,000-35,000 baht) as NES from USA / England / Canada / whatever. Native English Speakers are slightly more likely to get hired, but in general there are lots of jobs out there especially if you aren't tied down to one particular city/town. Schools take what they can get, pretty much.

Very strong accents sometimes limit people to 1 year at a given school, but more often the schools are too apathetic to look for replacements so they can stay on even with "Allo Allo" accents as SoilSpoil put it.

Non-Caucasians (read: black NES or non-NES) face more hurdles/racism in the job hunting stage, but IF they get hired they are generally paid the same amount as everyone else. Only Filipinos get cut-rate salaries, in my experience.

Not saying I agree with or endorse any of those practices in any way, just that they are the way things work here in non-hotspot (ie., outside Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and other places with high farang attractions/populations) Thailand. And 30-35k per month is actually usually a pretty livable wage outside of those same hotspots. Assuming you keep the "shagging Thai bargirls just for fun" to a minimum.

Does "degree holder" mean any bachelors degree, or only education degrees? Honestly, even though I have one, I don't think that a bachelors (in any subject including education) prepares one to be a much better teacher in Thailand than someone without a degree. And actually, people with ed. degrees are likely to burn out even faster because they have expectations about how a school should operate that just aren't realistic in Thailand. They get here, witness the shambles, and run away. Fast.

The main problem with jobs like these (at least the one that pays 32k+) is the 10 month contract. Pretty much guarantees 100% turnover every year. Non-O holders might be OK with a 10 month contract, but the total salary for the year better be competitive versus a 12 month contract. Non-B holders might not realize just how much a 10 month contract will screw them ... until it is too late. But a very high percentage of the rubes that fall for that trick at first are going to be the same ones that vanish at the end of the first term (or even earlier) and leave the school in a lurch, needing to fill vacancies left by those that "do a runner", in very off-peak times. Schools that pull that crap are just shooting themselves in the foot.

...As to the one offering "at least 15k", well, I can only question the sanity of whoever posted that. And the sanity of anyone that responds to it even moreso.

A list of provinces/places that have issued Work Permits on the trainer / expert / whatever route would help, but not all that much. Because just like in any office here, interpretation of the rules shifts hourly. Ask 10 different people, get 20 different answers.

I'm basically in the same boat. I want to be able to plan ahead -- multiple years ahead would be nice. But things essentially never work that way here, for me anyway.

As unhelpful as "life isn't fair" is, it is kinda correct. Especially here.

I've been working here for almost 10 years,which I know is less than a lot of you guys. I have a Bachelors of Engineering. I know of a lot of "unfair" situations, like non-NES Africans in a school near me getting paid 40-50% more than me because they got 5-year full teacher's licenses from Photoshopped B. Eds. Plenty of other stuff like that. In the meantime, I've been jumping through the hoops and generally doing things by the book (or at least, a fairly rigorous interpretation of the book). I think I easily do a better job of actually teaching than 95%+ of the random motley crew of semi-serious people, newbies, non-native speakers, backpackers, sex tourists, and other types that make up the labor pool of "English Teachers" here. But, I get paid the same as any new fresh-off-the-boat random hire, the same amount that I got when I started the job years ago ... and I don't complain about it. Actually, it is probably better that way, because in my experience any NES teacher getting paid more than any other NES teacher at the same school is going to be the first person looking for a new job when the front office realizes that they could just hire some random new person and pay them less. We are thought of as easily-replaced cogs in the machine. Quality and experience in teachers might be an item on the priority list at most schools, but it sure as $#!t isn't very high on the list.

Sorry for the rant. I don't have any solutions. I keep thinking that eventually the train will go off the rails in such spectacular fashion that things will HAVE to change. And I'm half right ... the train is off the rails all right, but heads seem to still too far buried in the sand to actually do anything about it.

That's good news! I can't explain the resets, but I'm not about to complain either...

I believe the online database listed the number based on the passport. A new passport meant that the number of waivers was reset. Not sure if that is still the case. Might very well be.

I do have a new passport now (which might let me be a completely new person in the eyes of kurusapha, although I'm not counting on that), but both times that my waiver count has dropped (first time was a full reset to zero, second time I dropped from 2nd waiver to 1st) applied to my first passport number. Using my old passport number in the search tells me I am on my first waiver, as of recently. Last year it said I was on my 2nd. My new passport comes back blank/zero, but it may not stay that way -- I have a friend who was on a 2nd waiver, got a new passport while that was going, and applied for a new waiver after the 2nd expired. They made the connection somehow and his new passport shows up as being on the 3rd waiver now. And another friend that also had a full reset down to zero also had that happen NOT linked to a new passport.

So a new passport might explain some instances of waiver resets, but definitely not all.

The randomness of it is a big part of the problem -- as is the case with many things here it is hard to plan for anything when you ask 10 different people and get 12 different answers....

Use the kurusapha online form to check your waiver status regularly.

I had 2 waivers at one school, then changed jobs about 5 years ago. The new job applied for a new waiver for me (would have been my 3rd), tried to make frequent followup calls, but never actually got the waiver or any followup information whatsoever. A year's worth of semi-frequent calls (I think our paperwork person called at least 15 times in the first month, and at least once a month after that) went either completely unanswered, or "we'll have to get back to you" with no followup. I got a work visa and WP on the strength of having applied for the waiver (note that this was about 6 years ago, so no guarantee things would be the same now, not to mention that every labor or immigration office works on their own interpretation of the rules that change with the tides).

The following year, my new school applied again. That time, it came back with a relatively short turnaround... BUT, on the online form to check things out, it was listed as my *1st* waiver (even though it should have been my 3rd). That one lasted until 2 years ago, at which point I got my "2nd" waiver. Then, as now, it wasn't clear what would be required for a 2nd waiver, so we sent in the same Culture Course that I had done in 2008. Came back fine, which brings us up to now -- my current waiver ends a couple months after the term starts. And for the past 2 years, the online form has come back with saying that I'm on waiver number 2 ("krung ti song" in Thai).

I've been a bit concerned about this transition and getting the 3rd waiver. I have a degree in Engineering, NOT education. I didn't ever sign up for or participate in any of the moneymaking scamsProfessional Knowledge Tests. I've been trying to talk my employer into bypassing kurusapha entirely by contracting me as something other than the "T" word, which they were willing to go along with. But, just to follow up on things, the paperwork lady decided to check my status on the online form again recently, and ... it came back saying I'm back to 1st waiver (krung ti neung).

The only explanation that I have for that is abject incompetence at kurusapha. Not that I'm complaining, because this time it actually works in my favor; I should easily get a "2nd" waiver (which should actually be my 4th, or 5th if they hadn't been both incompetent AND lazy in that full year where I was in limbo) and even if I don't get the waiver for whatever reason, the whole mess just further confirms to my employer that they need to bypass kurusapha if they want to get anything actually done.

...So, check your status often. Might be the case that kurusapha has lost count on your waivers and what you think will be your 3rd will show up as 1st or 2nd in their records. I've seen it happen both to my own records with them, and a couple of friends also.