Chrisdeanwild

ISO is meaningless in education and does not guarantee anything relating to educational quality.

All it means is that processes are documented and followed.

ISO is useful in some situations, but in hospitals and schools/training institutions it's woorth very little.

For a training course or any kind of education, I'd prefer to see it accredited by a good and well known university.

A different opinion from the…

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (established by Regulation of the Council of the European Communities)

“If an education or training organization is looking for a comprehensive quality assurance approach, then the principles and requirements of ISO 9001 and 9002 are to be considered seriously. Indeed, most traditional quality assurance methods in education and training are based on a classical typology of a provider who delivers particular course and programmes to students. This facilitates the analogy with industrial production and mass services – and hence the quality philosophy adopted there. One might even argue that the ISO 9000 standards can more easily be applied to education and training activities than to other services, such as health care, personal care, consulting or training.”

“Some organizations have sought to introduce ISO 9000 to improve specific functions or activities. This may be related to a general concern of ensuring high customer satisfaction, or to the willingness to attain specific quality levels. Some examples related to education and training institutions are:

• Improvement of the logistical and support processes
  
• Better control of external trainers
  
• Development of a thorough procedure for design and development of training and education programmes and courses
  
• Quality assurance of the examination and evaluation of students”
  

Well that's really up to date and relevant - it quotes ISO9002 which has been obsolete for 9 years!

Wonder if anyone can help - we're flying our medium size cross breed dog out from the UK - think we're on top of all the paperwork, but it occurs to me to ask, does anyone know or have experience of whether Bangkok taxis or at least the airport ones will take dogs? If not, anyone got ideas for alternatives.

I really don't want to be stood there with our poor pooch just having done 13 hours in BA cargo, wondering why it's suddenly got so hot in Oldham and all the taxi dudes are runing away giving it "May Ow Krub!"

Any experiences, information and ideas very gratefuly received

Hi everybody,

I will be working in the Surasak area starting next month for at least 6 months. I would like to find a clean and quiet service apartment in the area. My budget will be approx. 20-25k a month. Is this realistic? Not interested staying in the J-town places. I will not need much space. 35m2 is plenty.

I have been looking around a little, but cannot really find anything.

Does anybody have experiences or recommendations for this area?

Thanks.

We've been living in services apartments right next to Surasak for the last 3 months. We've in a big 2/3 bed apartment, but they alos have small 1 bedroom ones - they're only around 30sm I'd guess, but it's only 8,000 bht a month. If you're interested, let me know and I'll let you have details.

Hi

Moving to Chiang Mai in 6 - 12 months (depending on UK housing market!). We want to bring our much loved pooch with us and while we get set up for the first few weeks want to put her up in good boarding kennels. Anybody know any they can recommend?

Many thanks

Chris