LecheHombre

When in Rome, avast ye matey.

...

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.

With a Non-O marriage visa, I think you'll find places that are willing to fudge your contract as a "teaching assistant", or "translator", or "language expert" to avoid the Kurusapa requirement of having a Bachelor's in Education. At that point, all you need is for the local labor office to play ball and sign off on giving you a Work Permit, which it seems like many if not most do. Then you've got a contract, a work permit, and a visa, which in my opinion makes you fully legal. It *is* a grey area though.

Thailand is pretty ageist, but on the other hand the number of foreign teachers has been going down recently so most schools are not exactly spoiled for choice. For most schools, they have to choose between A ) "unqualified" people like you (and me, I have a Bachelor's degree but it is in engineering), B ) agency hires that are usually VERY green, MUCH more likely to quit partway through a contract, and usually more expensive than option A types (not that they see much of that money -- the agencies skim up to about half off the top), C ) Filipinos for a cut rate (which usually parents aren't too keen on), or D ) not hiring any foreign / NES staff. Outside of International schools, there aren't even CLOSE to enough foreigners/NES with degrees in Education to go around, so plenty of schools will be happy to overlook your age and go for option A there.

If the rumour is true about having to have only degree qualifications from your home country then probably half the current NES and NNES teachers will be leaving to be replaced by the friendly Filipinos who have probably been pushing for this rule change behind the scenes!

{snip}

"Well, One of my teacher friend's wife had a nice long conversation yesterday with the Teacher's Council of Thailand (Khurusapa) about the new upcoming requirements for a 5 year Teacher's license for a teacher. There are some major changes in what will be allowed and what won't, so before any of you sign up for a new course to get an extended accelerated degree such as a Master's or another degree in Education, be warned that there is talk of only allowing that extra degree course to come from your home country. So if you are from England or the U.S and want to get an accelerated degree in Education in say.....the Philippines, it wouldn't be accepted by TCT at this time with the new requirements. So my advice is to HOLD OFF on wasting your money on a new course of study until these issues get settled...because the new rules are very close to being put in place."

{snip}

P.S. Then we're not talking about 50 % anymore. 70 to 80 % would be more realistic.

Train, off the rails. It is happening in front of our very eyes. Here's the deal: every government school in Thailand *wants* NES teachers. Mostly because parents want their kids to study with a NES. A lot of schools charge parents a "NES" fee, even if the students only have 1 hour a week with one, or even if the school doesn't actually have any NES teachers -- maybe a Filipino or some Africans who can claim English as a 2nd or maybe 3rd language. Net result is that we NES give schools added prestige and income, whether deserved or not.

Khurusapa has their heads so far up ... uh, in the clouds ... that they apparently just plain don't get it.

In the meantime the Schools themselves, as is culturally common, are slow to catch on to the problem. They certainly don't anticipate it. But things are starting to snowball enough that even they are noticing things amiss. It won't fully dawn until some of those 70-80% like you mention are actually gone. But it will happen. When it does, the Schools themselves will push back. But, they know the slow turnaround time of pushback results, so they will also be looking for ... alternate routes. I think the primary thing that they are going to find is job title changes.

Maybe some loopholes will get shut, but I think that at some point the pushback from schools will be enough that this nonsense gets quietly scuttled. Probably won't be officially repealed, just a quiet word goes out to Labor and Immigration Offices to NOT enforce this stuff, to save face.

If I'm wrong, and they (khurusapa) stick to their guns... Well, government schools will lose a HUGE moneymaking chip, which will be claimed by private language schools and "we're exceptions to the rule!" teacher agencies.

Or, as another analogy:

In the US, McDonalds sells a lot of hamburgers. They need a lot of burger flippers to do that. One day, the Burger Flippers Council of McDonalds decides that to be a qualified burger flipper, you need a Masters in Gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu in France. Yet, amazingly, the talent pool of available burger flippers that meet that requirement is astoundingly low. McDonalds tries to hire with those qualification requirements enforced, but they face a bigtime labor shortage. If they keep on that path, Burger King is going to hire all of the "unqualified" burger flippers that McDonalds let go. McDonalds can't meet demand, Burger King stock flourishes. Or, McDonalds can tell the BFCMcD to go stick their nose in a rubber hose, keep the burger flippers that they currently have employed, and maintain the status quo.

I don't know which way McDonalds is going to go in that scenario, but I can predict one thing: there is no happy ending for the Burger Flippers Council of McDonalds.

I don't have any experience with working for an agency, but I have talked with several people who do or did. Their situations were like this:

The agency "helped" them with getting Work Visa, Work Permit, and other documentation. Supposedly, agency folks don't need to worry about getting Teacher's Licenses or waivers, which was at least de-facto true for the people that I knew. They had proper Visas and Work Permits, so as far as I can tell they were working 100% legally. As someone who doesn't work through an agency, let me tell you ... all of that help is actually worth something. I'd love to not have to deal with immigration, Kurusapha, etc.

However, their salary was usually in the high teens or low 20's. Two took home 18,000 baht per month. One I knew got 22,000. Worst example actually took home 12,000 baht per month -- and she was a NES from the US.

In the meantime, all four of these people eventually learned how much the school was paying the agency for them to work there. The 2 taking home 18k and the 1 with 22k were at the same school, but in different years and through different agencies. However, the school was paying 40,000 baht to the agency for them. At the same time, traditionally-hired NES people working directly for the school were making 35,000 baht per month. Everybody there discovered this at the same time halfway through the year or so, when the school left a spreadsheet with salaries in plain sight when everybody came in to pick up their cash. Needless to say, that managed to piss off everybody. Traditionally hired people with years of experience are told they can't get loyalty (or even inflationary) pay raises after years of service, yet the school is fine paying a substantial amount more than they are getting to complete noob agency people (or at least, to their agency) with no experience whatsoever. And the agency people discover that their agency is taking about 50% of their paycheck, presumably justified by all the exhaustive paperwork that has to be done for them. Once. Explosion, reactor meltdown, pretty much everybody quits or does a runner (can't say I blame them).

The one taking home 12,000 baht a month eventually just asked her school how much they were paying her agency. They told her the agency got about 30k per month. 30 for them, 12 for you ... the one actually doing all the work. Nice. However, she was more the meek sort so she finished out her (10 month) contract and then moved to another town to get a directly-hired job making about 3x as much as she had before.

So, before I looked into working for an agency, I'd be very careful about doing my homework and seeing how much they are paying me vs how much the school is paying them. Hassle-free visa and work permit might be nice, but it isn't 20,000 baht per month nice. Of course, if you ask basic questions like "can I contact anyone at the school where I will be working", the agency will be likely to make threats about your visa, etc. to try to keep you from figuring this stuff out until after you've got a contract with them. So maybe it is safer just to say ... steer clear.

I have never seen them in advance, but I usually see an M3 and/or M6 copy after the test has already occurred.

To be frank, every one I have ever seen has been a horrendous, worthless failure of a test. Wastes of paper.

Like you said, there are frequently:

A ) No correct answers

B ) Multiple (even ALL) correct answers

C ) Grammatical errors or other flaws in the questions, answers, reading sections, etc.

D ) Plenty of other miscellaneous mistakes/flaws

I think the biggest problem is that the test is written as "choose the best answer" rather than "choose the correct answer", but what determines "best" is often very subjective. If you've seen enough of the old tests, you have a better shot at knowing what they are looking for because you can figure out that "best" often means "most polite / and or compatible with conservative Thai cultural sensibilities". Problems arise when the most polite option is also archaic or even blatantly grammatically incorrect... Should you assume that the old usage or grammar mistakes are unintentional errors, and therefore stick with that answer even though it is wrong, or guess that they are intentional errors designed to prompt you to choose another option? Even keeping that kind of stuff in mind, it is difficult to impossible even for a fluent native speaker to get a perfect (or even merely a GOOD) score on the test without being given the answers.

Basically I think that if you gave the test to native speaking PhDs in linguistics or English, who weren't familiar with Thai culture, most would "fail" the test. That is, if they didn't get 2-3 questions in and just refuse to go any further because of the terrible quality...

I'm often asked to help my students prepare for the O-Net by going over past tests with them in class. At the beginning of the class, I flat out tell them that I think the tests are terrible, wrong, and worthless. I'll continue by saying that unfortunately they have to take them, and even worse, the scores they get will actually have an impact on their lives and futures at a university/whatever. So, I'm here to TRY to help them get the best scores they can on the test, BUT they should not feel discouraged if they get a low score. It isn't a fair test of their English ability in any way. That being said, I think that the best single bit of advice you can give them is to answer like the questions are being asked to them by their very conservative Grandma -- if more than one answer seems right, err on the side of the one that seems the most deferential/polite.

--EDIT because of damn auto-smilies

I will, of course, bow to the other posters better knowledge of the rules. The person I talked to wasn't associated with the labor dept., so she could have been entirely wrong, right for Thais but wrong for farangs, or just going by what would be a problem in the de-facto situation here.

...That being said, doing things "by the book" tends to work better in places where there aren't so many versions of the book. Or interpretations of each version. And heck, even in the US one is technically supposed to report earnings from verbal contract labor (babysitting, mowing lawns, handyman, etc.) to the IRS. But in practice, most people aren't going to unless that makes up a significant portion of their income AND it is a nontrivial total amount. Practice here is going to be ... somewhat more lax than that.

I have a feeling that if you walked into a labor department office and said you wanted a work permit so you could legally tutor people 1 on 1 via Craigslist appointments, for which you would be paid back only for travel expenses/lunches ... they'd laugh and tell you to stop wasting their time.

But like Gulfsailor said, don't get confused between a work permit and a teacher license or teacher license waiver. In general, for stuff like private language schools, universities, etc. you don't need a teaching license or waiver, but you would need a work permit. Government and private schools for primary and secondary students will require a permit and license.

My Thai wife has a friend who is part of a team that does the government school "inspections". The ones you know are coming if suddenly things get repainted, or a bunch of potted plants are purchased, or if the school wants you to print out a year's worth of lesson plans, etc.

Anyway, what she told me was that for private, verbal-agreement type work (like private tutoring), you don't need a work permit, to pay taxes, etc. as long as:

1) You don't have any more than 7 students going at any one time in your home / workplace.

2) You don't have more than one group of students (even if the total adds up to less than 7) being taught by multiple people going at any one time. So, one can't teach a class of 3 English students while their wife/friend/whatever teaches a group of 3 students art or Thai or whatever in another room on the same premises.

3) You don't advertise by putting up a sign, billboards, or do anything else that identifies your home or workspace as a business or school or whatever. This one makes sense in relation to other businesses, like cafes and Mom and Pop restaurants, who often don't have a sign up because if they did they would have to pay tax.

However, I also got the caveat that IF someone with clout takes notice of what you are doing and they take exception to it, they CAN make things difficult for you even though the rules should technically allow what you are doing to be perfectly legal. Which should seem pretty par for the course here in the Land of CorruptionSmiles. Basically, I wouldn't worry too much about that other than to be extra careful about item 3 up there. Stay small, advertise by word of mouth, and if you take the work seriously and put effort into it you'll quickly have a full plate to the point that you have a waiting list of people who want to start up studying with you. And you'll still be small enough to avoid any interest of labor office / whatever. If you want to develop beyond that point and what those 3 points above allow for, to be safe you'd want a Thai ownership structure and to get more by-the-book paperwork filed, etc. Although at that point, you're pretty much working for a private language school, where I think it is fair to assume that the onus is on them to play by the rules... Which they often won't if they think they can get away with it.

Sorry for the book of a response. But I've got some followup questions for you, too:

• Out of all the people that took at least one of the professional knowledge tests, what percentage would you guess passed them all like you?
• Did passing them all result in you getting a 5-year, renewable full-on teacher's license, just like "fully qualified" people with Ed. degrees and US/UK teaching certs?
• How confident are you that they won't add more hoops to jump through whenever the next time that you have to renew is? What about "professional development" seminars etc. like Thai teacher's license holders?
• What about people who managed to pass all of the tests, but don't have a Bachelor's degree?

• It's believed that out of a 1,200 four-section-test takers, between 50 and 75 test takers passed them all (very rough estimation, information from another Thailand teaching forum).
• Passing the tests resulted in the 5-year renewable teacher license. I did my culture course 4 years prior passing the tests.
• New hoops might be added. However, I don't think the TCT will require more than a degree in education of a graduate diploma in education. In the 5-years validity of the license I must show 3 professional development activities. No problem.
• People without a degree who managed to pass all tests (fraud when applying) can't apply for the teacher license as holding a degree is a requirement when going this route.

Thanks for the replies. I definitely agree that the TCT probably won't ever make the requirements more strict (more than an Ed. degree or grad diploma in Ed.), although in my opinion those requirements by themselves are aiming way too unrealistically high here... And I didn't know or had forgotten that you couldn't take the tests without a degree.

Honestly, I think that if the teacher's license was an optional thing that individual schools could choose to require or pay extra for, it would be a good thing. A truly qualified full-on NES teacher (including people like you who went to the trouble of taking and passing all of the "equivalency" tests) that presumably doesn't necessarily need much if any assistance from Thai co-teachers is/should be worth more than someone without those qualifications on the open market here. Such people can potentially bring a LOT of advantages to a school (curriculum development, better classroom management techniques, etc.), and should be worth giving a higher salary to. Same can be said for people with years of experience (like me), although I'm perfectly willing to admit that your experience PLUS degree PLUS certification should trump my experience and degree with NO certification.

But that isn't the way it seems like things work. Here it's all stick and no carrot; and I know plenty of people who have been granted the reward of 5-year licenses in spite of A) having fraudulent documents from Khao San etc., B ) having degrees of dubious actual value, like "Christian Education" degrees from African nations or the Philippines, or C) having legit Ed. degrees but NOT being NES and being completely incapable of teaching proper English. And pay raises for years or service? Very very rarely have I heard about that here, and in the few instances that I DID know of it, the extra pay actually ended up resulting in lower job security as schools started wondering why they were paying more for experienced teachers when parents are just as easily sold on any white-faced backpacker fresh off the bus and working on bare-minimum salary. Catch 22 / backfire situation right there.

If certification provided salary incentives (without negatively affecting job security), I'd have been more interested in either taking the tests or doing an online postgrad thing from a reputable source like the Nottingham outfit from the UK or somewhere else. But then again, I have family and other ties to where I am currently living, and I don't think that any of the local schools could afford to pay a higher salary for better qualified people. Or at least, they'd prefer to stick with the status quo of high-turnover random hires rather than shell out extra for better qualifications. So realistically, I'd just be making myself overqualified for any of the local jobs. Overqualified, same pay, and higher expectations / more work thrown my way ... not much incentive for me. If I was willing/interested in moving to Bangkok or Chiang Mai ... maybe. But in backwoods ... nah.

Still, again I'm glad that it worked out for some people like you; even if all it means is that you don't have to worry as much about the specter of TCT-crackdowns hanging over your shoulder.

I've known lots of people who wanted to "go by the book" and fly right in each of the 3-4 "crackdowns" in the past ~10 years that I've been here, and today all they have to show for their hoop-jumping is worthless pieces of paper with obsolete TCT and MOE certifications stamped on them. Not to mention having spent up to hundreds of thousands of baht and countless hours to obtain those now-worthless pieces of paper.

At the same time, I'm basically tied to being here. Wife (which sorts out the visa aspect of the issue for me) and kid. So, "greener pastures" isn't a real good option for me.

Like you, I've been here for more than 10 years and like you I have a wife and children in Thailand. However, for 6+ years, foreign teachers in Thailand had the opportunity to sit the TCT professional knowledge tests. I took my chances and sat them. Time after time as they weren't easy to pass. Finally I passed them all and got my teacher license.

How many times did you sit the tests, LecheHombre?

I'm glad that route worked out for you -- genuinely, I mean it!

For me, I didn't ever sign up for even one of the tests for a combination of reasons (or at least, excuses that I can at least justify to myself):

A) I don't live close to any of the testing centers (Chiang Mai or Bangkok, right?), so in addition to the cost of the tests, I'd have to pay travel expenses. Plus opportunity costs for being away from home and therefore good supplemental income tutoring sessions. Not a huge thing, but it adds up.

B ) I heard very bad things about the pass rates. What I read and heard suggested that the 2nd test (dealing with IT / tech use in the classroom?) was fairly doable, but all the other tests had pathetic pass rates. In the meantime, I was seeing the English portions of the yearly O-Net tests and having firsthand evidence that the TCT/MoE is completely incompetent when it comes to writing sensible English tests (seriously, the amount of O-Net questions that have ALL correct or NO correct answers is staggering). That didn't give me much confidence that the professional knowledge tests would be any better.

C) I had 2 waivers at my previous and first place of employment. Then I changed schools to where I am now 5 years ago. My first year at the new school, I got my 3rd waiver with no issues on the strength of the same culture course that I had done to get my 2nd waiver. Then, when that one expired (3 years ago), the paperwork lady at my school applied for another one (which would have been my 4th waiver). She called / emailed and tried other ways to get in touch with the TCT many times over the course of the year, and *never* got any knowledgable responses... I got lost in the bureacracy somehow. So, I taught the entire year on the basis of my school really doing everything they could to get me the waiver (there wasn't any rule about a limit on them as far as I know at the time) but never actually getting it. The local labor office was fine with granting me a work permit on the strength of the school having *applied* for the waiver; it wasn't the school's fault that the TCT was too backed up / incompetent to actually get back to them.

After that fiasco, the school applied for another waiver for me again fresh for the next year (so, 2 years ago). That one came back without issue, and when I checked up on myself in the TCT database, it listed it as being my 1st waiver. So, the year out of the system seems to have reset my counter. That waiver will be finished at the end of this academic year, so if I were to try again I might lucky and be treated like I'm just applying for a 2nd waiver instead of what is really my 5th. Anyway, that whole history also doesn't inspire much confidence...

D) The knowledge tests are/were inter-related to the culture course. I was an early-adopter on taking the culture course because the first school I taught in paid for me and other teachers to go to it. So, me and a group from that school were some of the first people to take it, from one of the first outfits certified/accredited for it by the TCT. In fact, that school paid for and sent a group to an even earlier culture course that popped up right after that rule went on the books. That one ended up being a money-grab fly-by-night outfit that *wasn't* TCT-accredited, so it was a complete waste of the school's money and the time of the people that went to it. The school was more careful to make sure that wouldn't happen again on the 2nd round, which I was a part of. BUT, even though it was TCT-approved, I found it to be a complete waste of time. The Thai instructor gave us a rundown on basic cultural faux-pas etc. that anyone who is paying attention will learn on their first day here. It was a 2-day course, but she ran out of material about 3 hours in to the first day so she let us out early. When we came back for the 2nd day, she decided to teach us the Thai alphabet -- which was actually the only useful part of the course, but has only very tenuous connections to "culture".

I know the tests are entirely different from the culture course, but this is all TCT-initiated stuff. And again, my experience with the TCT-approved culture course reinforced my ... lack of confidence in them. I could word that a lot more strongly, but I'll leave it at that.

E) Until recently, it didn't seem like there was going to be any time limit or deadline for completing those professional knowledge tests. Since I was still getting Work Permits without difficulty, I figured I'd wait until it became 100% necessary to sign up for any of the tests. I didn't see any benefit to starting on them before I was told I HAD to, because the rules change so often that I felt it was very likely that they would be scrapped / invalidated / superceded. Which, as it turns out, was half correct... But on the other hand, there are those few like you that took all the tests, passed, and are now (hopefully) out of the cycle of TCT goal-shifting. So it at least worked out for some -- which is a good thing!

Basically, I feel that if I have a valid visa that allows for a work permit (Non-O marriage for me) and a work permit, I'm working 100% legally, no matter what the TCT thinks about it. I feel pretty secure in the visa part of that. The work permit was always dead easy, up until a year and a half ago. Now, there is no consistency in how it is handled across different schools within a province, different provinces, different workers in an office, different feng-shui auras or planetary alignments, etc. I guess it has always been like that to a certain extent (certainly in Immigration offices!), but it seems to be getting worse. To me, it seems like the job title change "English skills instructor" vs. the T-word is something that can/could/should be sold to most labor offices; it will just require somebody with enough clout to go in and tell them that this is how things are going to have to work. Let the TCT live in their own little world and make up rules that apply there while everybody else gets down to the business of actually being grounded in the realities of planet Earth.

So, I guess that I'm holding out hope that something like that will be enough to get me a work permit next year. Beyond that ... might as well whip out the ol' magic eight ball, because things change so fast here that it is impossible to predict how things will work. I'd love to be confident and secure about my long-term future here, but TiT and anything can happen.

Sorry for the book of a response. But I've got some followup questions for you, too:

• Out of all the people that took at least one of the professional knowledge tests, what percentage would you guess passed them all like you?
• Did passing them all result in you getting a 5-year, renewable full-on teacher's license, just like "fully qualified" people with Ed. degrees and US/UK teaching certs?
• How confident are you that they won't add more hoops to jump through whenever the next time that you have to renew is? What about "professional development" seminars etc. like Thai teacher's license holders?
• What about people who managed to pass all of the tests, but don't have a Bachelor's degree?

By the way, I have a Bachelor of Science in an Engineering field, but I'm of the opinion that a college degree shouldn't be a requirement for teaching here -- I've known plenty of people with no degree who taught well enough (especially given at least SOME form of support from properly qualified Thai co-teachers) and a couple of people WITH Ed. degrees and legit teacher's licenses that couldn't teach their way out of a wet paper bag...

I once thought like the posters here like Yooyung, who really *want* to do everything by the book.

...But that time has passed. Outside of international schools in Bangkok, this new system will be a train wreck. A hundred thousand baht for the cheapest option, to get "qualified" for a 30k monthly salary job. And most (not all, but most) of those options are of very dubious utility anywhere outside of Thailand. Even ignoring those issues, the other problem remains that the TCT keeps moving the damn goalposts. I've known lots of people who wanted to "go by the book" and fly right in each of the 3-4 "crackdowns" in the past ~10 years that I've been here, and today all they have to show for their hoop-jumping is worthless pieces of paper with obsolete TCT and MOE certifications stamped on them. Not to mention having spent up to hundreds of thousands of baht and countless hours to obtain those now-worthless pieces of paper.

At the same time, I'm basically tied to being here. Wife (which sorts out the visa aspect of the issue for me) and kid. So, "greener pastures" isn't a real good option for me.

That leaves me with the gray-area solution. The school where I have taught for the past 5 years wants me to continue teaching there. I want to keep teaching there. I think I do a good job. I think that the students learn (much) more under my instruction than they would under a fresh off the boat rubber-stamp first waiver no experience dude. In the town where I live, out of pretty close to a hundred foreign teachers in various schools around town that I've known in my time here, only *2* have been native English speakers with a degree in Education. And both of those guys panned out worse than Joe Average backpacker -- Ed. degree people usually have high expectations that simply are not met by the reality of a Govt. Thai school so they burn out really fast.

So I want to stay, the school wants to keep me, and I'm a better option than anybody else they are realistically likely to find. When the time comes, I'll give them an ultimatum: I want to stay, I think you want me to stay. So, you do whatever it takes to make that happen with the local labor office regarding my Work Permit. But know that I'm not jumping through any hoops for the TCT. If that means that my contract lists me as a "English language instructor" instead of the T-word, I'm fine with that (as long as my salary stays the same). Hell, my contract can say that I'm a "language consultant", "English expert", or "helper monkey" as long as the labor office signs off on it and my salary stays the same.

If the school balks at that... Well, I've got some other options. But I really don't think that this situation will continue TOO much longer, because I feel like eventually the train is going to jump the tracks and make the madness of this all quite glaringly obvious. When that happens, to save face nothing will officially change... while quietly Immigration, Labor offices, and the TCT will be told to stop enforcing everything. On the other hand, I've been expecting that to happen any time now for the past year or so, and it hasn't happened yet. So I guess things are going to have to get worse before they get better. But the "good" news is that I'm quite confident that things are definitely going to get worse. Yay!

I have said in earlier posts I back this idea all the way and I hope it gets off of the ground, however the selected teachers have got to be motivated and not transients. Transient teachers do far more harm than good to their charges..

So what do you feel about my situation? Honestly I mean. Do I start on Monday or not?, I want to help the community but have my proffessional life to think of..

Sorry to chime in late on this, but I am an infrequent lurker. Your situation caught my eye though. I admit that I haven't diligently read the entire thread here, so forgive me if I rehash something.

This is just my opinion, but I don't think that it would be a bad thing even if you started, did a month, and then had to bail for whatever reason. In a lot of the small country schools, the students have never talked with a farang before, and certainly never had one as a teacher. They scramble all the time to get us for 1-2 day "English Camps", but there simply aren't enough interested foreigners to go around. Some people get all uptight about qualified vs unqualified teachers, but the situation here makes that all but irrelevant. A "motivated amateur" can make for a fantastic teacher in that situation, a real good opportunity for the students.

If you get called back to your career after 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month... Then the kids got the experience of learning with a bona-fide farang for a while. In all likelihood, there isn't anybody else lined up to do any better.

The one caveat that I would provide is to suggest that you should pace yourself according to your motivation. Generally, a full-time teacher at a govt. school will be doing 18-22 hours (in-classroom hours, not counting plan developing and other time spent) per week and making 30-35k per month. All of this recent shakeup is due to the 10,000 baht subsidy for schools employing foreigners. I haven't heard of any schools that were already employing farangs full-time forking over any of that 10,000 baht, but schools that don't have any farangs seem to be quite happy to give it all to you. So, they are offering you 10,000 baht, but they will try to get you to do the same amount of hours as a full-time teacher (or at least, as many as possible) for less than 1/3rd of the salary that a full-timer would get.

I don't know if there is some minimum amount of hours needed for a foreign teacher to qualify the school for the 10,000 baht subsidy or not, but I have heard of schools offering it with a schedule of as few as 6 hours per week, maybe spread into only 2-3 days. The school you mentioned wants you to do 5 half-days per week -- depending on how they lay out your schedule, that could be as much as 20 hours. Honestly, it is fairly likely that they will try to talk you into something like that. You can take the "give something back to the community" bit as far as you want, but just be aware that if your motivation level is being taxed you could probably cut down to 2 half days (6 hours per week) and it would still be a positive way to contribute and worth the school getting the subsidy for you.

Final thing is that this is all disregarding any legality / work permit / visa entanglement issues that have already been mentioned in the thread here. The school wants you, they think they can get the 10,000 baht subsidy, but very frequently they have no idea about what it takes for us to be legally, by-the-book working here. They will be very "mai pen lai" about it, but it would probably serve you well to be at least a little bit less cavalier than that. Try to get them involved in getting you working on a valid permit, as by-the-book as can be managed.

2) The school would change our job titles to something like "English Language Advisor/Expert/Translator" rather than anything like "Teacher", and then since they weren't employing "teachers" they could get work permits issued that didn't have to meet the TCT rules.

To get an extension of the permission of stay for occupations other than teacher, applicants from Europe, Australia, Canada and The United States must have a monthly income of at least 50,000 Baht. Police Order 777/2551. http://www.immigrati...777-2551_en.pdf

Good to know -- that would probably explain why that particular school never implemented that "option 2" (and why everybody seems to have heard about that plan but nobody seems to have actually heard of it being done). Although considering that school has actively encouraged people who applied there to get false degrees from Khao San Road, they are clearly willing to ignore the rules.

I see your point, but I'm married and living in a town not a whole lot larger than a "village", and not looking to move. It only takes burning your bridges at one or two schools in the area to be SOL in terms of local employment, so at least locally the jobs aren't a "dime a dozen".

I think (hope) that the Thai staff in the English Department at my school would go to bat for me; I think that they realize that I'm a better quality option than some fresh-off-the-plane converted tourist with no teaching experience and quite probably no degree. However, the Chinese/Thai family cartels are the ones that are the school directors out here, and teaching quality isn't a primary concern for them. They need white/handsome/young faces (probably in that order of importance) to sell to local parents, many of whom rarely see a farang and have probably never tried to talk to one. With that kind of "audience", I think if someone rocks the boat here they will be replaced with someone who would tow the line, even if the replacement is a much lower quality teacher.

I'd bet that your take on things would be good advice in Bangkok or somewhere with a large population and more schools. Macro vs. micro economics. And maybe I've got the wrong read and I should go for it even in my local situation here, but I personally think that it wouldn't end well here. I wouldn't be happy in a much larger town than where I'm at now, let alone the zoo that is Bangkok, so I'm willing to make some concessions.

However, since I do think that I'm appreciated by my Thai boss / head of English Dept., you may have convinced me that I should talk to him privately and explain why this whole incentive thing could have some repercussions with hiring/retaining foreign staff.

You said "but they won't do it without things being arranged so they are working perfectly legally" -- who is the they in that sentence? (one of those Eats Shoots and Leaves things)

Most likely you are talking about the two new teachers who want to do things by the book. I agree and understand that stance, but on the other hand depending on who you ask there seem to be 100 different "books" with 100 different, incompatible, or contradictory rules. I guess one should do the best they can without getting TOO stressed out about it.

Most of the schools that I know of are incredibly ill-informed about just what the rules are supposed to be regarding the foreigners that they hire. They send you off to get a visa with incorrect or missing paperwork, and seem to blame it on you if immigration calls you on anything. So if it is the school that is trying to go by the book, that could be a pretty positive sign depending on your point of view.

To contribute to answering your question, a school I worked at previously claimed they were going to try to get around the rule in two ways:

1) The director "knew some people" who could push the school's paperwork through.

2) The school would change our job titles to something like "English Language Advisor/Expert/Translator" rather than anything like "Teacher", and then since they weren't employing "teachers" they could get work permits issued that didn't have to meet the TCT rules.

To my knowledge, that school never actually tried option 2 and have since only hired people that have "degrees" -- although I believe that the majority of them have "Khao San" degrees (in some cases the school actively suggested that they obtain them in that way). It doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that I and my legitimate degree (not in Ed. though) have been replaced by those dudes with fake degrees. However, I can take some Schadenfreude solace in watching the teaching quality there spiral into the ground as a result of the revolving door of random clowns that take 20+ "sick" (read: hung over) days per year. Som nam na to that place, and the school I've moved to in the meantime is way better.

You caught on quicker than I did -- I had sorta the opposite process. While I was still holding on to the paperwork I got a followup call from the school and managed to stall for time for another day (I was out of town). My Thai wife was with me when I got the call and could tell I was ...vexed... and she gave me the evil eye (you know that look of disapproval you get any time you feel like challenging the system in any way? -- that's the one) when I told her I was thinking about just holding on to the form unless they played ball and cut me in. After letting me cool down she managed to help me come to the conclusion that that wasn't going to fly.

I am happy at my school and generally think that they treat us (foreign teachers) better than most places, including the last place I worked here. So I guess I can just let it go.

However, the more I think about it the weirder it seems that we are involved in the application process at all. The form didn't ask for any information that the school didn't already have about me, and I'm sure that this will cause some confrontations between school and foreigners. In confrontation-averse Thailand, again I'd just assume that they would want to keep us out of the loop on this one.