onlycw

Hi All

no one replied in the Teaching forum. Years ago, a school would use fancy seals. They also put a stamp on each and every page.

But my present employer won't bother, referring to a tiny symbol on the letterhead as evidence that they are part of the government.

If there will be something missing, who pays? That would be me!

Police check: just got a receipt. Not the clearance itself! (They took fingerprints with ink and to process them will likely take weeks)

Q: Will missing seals and stamps or the Police clearance confirmation be deal breakers?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences!

This is serious. Any chance of you signing the new contract? Making sure they got all ducks in a row?

The alternative is to seek another job. Does the employer understand your predicament?

Halong Bay, about 4.5 hours by bus from Hanoi or 2.5 hours from Hai Phong (airport)

Strange, living in a country without having health insurance is a no-no, som nam na.

You might get help in Belgium from the CPAS?

Are you in overstay also?

I understand your problem would be to find funds for a plane ticket plus your rent plus overstay fee and what else?

I had (and still have) health insurance, but, due to the fact that I had a history of minor back problems, my herniated disc was considered a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered.

At the moment, I have two choices (but, neither of them are possible due to lack of funds):

1. Go back to Europe, which means a plane ticket, paying for the 20K overstay and the rent I currently owe. Pro: I would be in my own country. Con: I would be homeless.

2. Go to Cambodia and get a new visa, which means paying for the overstay at the border, pay for a new visa and have 20K on hand to show the immigration officer if needed. Pro: I could easily find a job once I'm not on overstay anymore. Con: I still am about to be homeless in a couple of days and, even if I did find a job right away, I wouldn't have any money to pay for a room during the first month.

So, yeah, complicated issue. Which is why I asked for suggestions here.

I read somewhere that a full (20,000 Baht) overstay will lead to the overstayer getting banned for a year or years from returning? It would be vitally important for the OP if that could be substantiated.

Re the source: after having been wooed for many moons, this is now said to make employment impossible.

Murky waters and all - lots of folks are teaching over there with no or unrelated BA degrees.

Some kind of harmonization would make sense though. OTOH: pay peanuts, get ...

Apparently, the authorities in Vietnam are now demanding "a degree in paedagogic" with some "English (literature?)" thrown in.

Can you confirm this? Will this be the future for ASEAN? Forget a BA in any subject, it's gotta be English & paedagogic?

Singapore Airlines has that flight.

Now, can someone recommend a website to book a car without the usual tricks (low miles included, CDW cover costing an arm and a leg)?

How can people make a booking without having the FACTS at hand?!?

They fall for some low price deals ad then the price doubles when they show up at the counter!

Expedia - shows a 27,8xx Baht return flight BKK - FRA. Alas, can't be booked.

When it comes to rental cars, they no longer inform bookers on CDW fees or kilometers included. What a rip off! Once, I rented a car and was hit with something like $ 30 a day extra for CDW.

And one needs to have an idea how many miles or kilometers will be included?? Forget it!

In the past, Expedia and an all inclusive rate. Not any more. Now a nightmare begins. How are you handling such searches?

Cheers

This has all the tones of the Southern American state and South African apartheid days.

Not acceptable in this day and age and hope tourists boycott this place.

no, its not. nice try though.

this is about hygiene, nothing else, get off your high horse

At the heart of Hong Kong, urine was on the floor. Unavoidable amounts of it!

In Vietnam I saw an old man pee on the floor 5 feet away from the urinal...

Thais are pretty serious about personal hygiene. But then, I have no idea who the Chinese are who are retching and spitting on floors wherever they may be.

(In Chiang Mai, there was an uproar over urinating and doing #2 in public)

Short answer: NO.

The TCT will pretty soon announce its new regulations and from what I've heard will you have to have a degree from your country of origin.

A degree from the Philippines is as good as a degree from Thailand. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Really?

But then ban and void all those degrees obtained by each and every foreigner here in Thailand, too!

Something really fishy is going on at the TCT. You met the folks who have fake degrees? Why can't the TCT have some panel to verify the basics?

• A day of testing. Let them do some academic writing
• let them handle an academic discussion on a subject they had at the university (say it's an accounting degree, Black & Scholes on options or something easy like time value of money?
• let them analyse some text - above the IELTS level.
• let them handle some conversations. Yes, that's right. i swear I encountered "teachers" who couldn't even engage in small talk with an American who wasn't from Texas.

Some piece of paper + being a foreigner + a TOEIC score of 600 (or less, depending on kickbacks paid?) = voila, someone is a teacher.

Seems Thailand needs to figure out how to attract the right kind of NES and teachers.

Presently, it's mostly cost-driven. (Many schools recruiting Cameroonians etc. - National origin doesn't make someone a bad or good English speaker & teacher. Granted. But I'm referring to folks who clearly are not academically gifted and who couldn't write a lesson plan if you gave them 3 hours time).

EQUAL TREATMENT would be nice, wouldn't it? Some guys get it all, WP, waiver, change of status at Immigration being just 20 and never having been a day at a university. While a friend from the UK, a trial solicitor with incredible oral and other skills must keep fighting to get permission to teach).

The TCT needs to look at w h o the people are they are handing waivers to.

Rant over.

Which bus station wins the lemon price? Pitsanulok: big cockroaches in some urinals and all over the place!

On a trip from Mochit to Nan, the bus had no toilet and wouldn't stop for 5:40 hours. That was almost unbearable...

Here it comes, the grammar post from someone who starts their sentences without capital letters. Also, this is a forum and therefore you can leave your grammar policing at the door.

The 7,000 words were needed and there was no waffling. Like I said, there was so much to mention. I surprised myself with it's length, but could not cut it down without losing important information about the many experiences I have encountered. All of the comments were already told to the Head of Department, this was me putting them in writing for my own record.

Granted - I trust you have had countless bad experiences and I would like to write a few chapters if you were to publish a book.

Writing stuff down can be part of "the creative process".

But in reality, both the writing and the verbal complaints are kind of pointless, detrimental and sure to backfire big time!

• It's the first hour of the first day at a school. I ask about books. A: "no books".
• then my class gets interrupted weeks later and the HoD demands that I use "the book"

...

Schools perfect the art of conning teachers. One school promised a certain salary in writing to Chinese teachers, making them fly over in the belief that they would be earning the promised salary. Next, the "Remuneration Committee" could only agree to pay thousands less.

Or they lure teachers with a promised 12 months' contract and then that gets changed into something like a 9.5 months' contract.

Whatever they do, they will have planned the next 5 moves like some chess Grand Master. That's why you need to focus on the one thing they really want: to fire you so that they can grab your salary!

Mate, I'd choose C.M. if the salary was 5 k lower. No contest. Go for Chiang Mai!

You got it all. Shopping, dining, ... with less traffic.

Go for Chiang Mai!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/18/indias-legendary-royal-enfield-motorcycle-to-expand-production-to-uk

Scenes from the Motorcycle and Scooter show at the NEC in Birmingham.Engine of a Royal Enfield. Photograph: David Sillitoe/David Sillitoe

Agence France-Presse

Wednesday 18 February 2015 01.55 GMT

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Fresh from an endorsement by US president Barack Obama, India’s motorcycle manufacturer Royal Enfield announced it was speeding up expansion and production to meet booming demand for its British-origin bikes.

The company, based in southwestern India but rooted in British biking history, will spend five billion rupees ($80m) this year on building two factories as well as other expansion plans.

“Royal Enfield will be investing Rs 500 crore in 2015 towards product development, capex and other development areas,” chief executive Siddhartha Lal said in a statement posted on its website.

“With a view to become the leader in the global mid-sized motorcycling, Royal Enfield will build two new technology centers.”

The centres will be located in the southern Indian city of Chennai and the English county of Leicestershire and be completed by the second quarter of 2016 and the end of 2015 respectively.

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The Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Photograph: imagebroker / Alamy/Alamy

The US president gave the iconic bikes a nod of approval after he saw India’s Border Security Force officers perform daredevil stunts on their shiny Royal Enfields during a trip to New Delhi last month.

“I saw the Republic Day daredevils on Royal Enfield motorcycles,” Obama said during the visit, describing the stunts as a highlight of the military parade to mark India’s Republic Day.

“The secret service doesn’t let me ride motorcycles, especially not on my head,” he added with a smile at the audacious manoeuvres.

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Lal said Royal Enfield continued to grow at a “phenomenal pace” last year, selling 300,000 units and had plans to manufacture a total of 450,000 in 2015.

The manufacturer, owned by heavy vehicle and bus maker Eicher, also saw a record income of 30bn rupees ($482m) last year, the statement said.

Royal Enfield started life as a British company making single-cylinder engines that produce a distinctive “thump” sound more than 110 years ago, but it closed its last domestic factory in 1970.

Its Indian partner started making bikes under licence in 1955, and is today one of the oldest names in motorcycling.

In 2009 Royal Enfield launched a redesigned version of its classic retro-looking “Bullet” model, a move that saw sales take off.

Hi All

it happened upon arrival at the airport of a neighboring country. No more access. The usual rescue methods failed (cell phone, recovery e-mail "Talk 21" had been turned into a pay-for product by BT). And whenever I tried something, all I got was freaking (language of where I was staying)

I haven't been able to log on again or access the cloud.

Let me just say that due to stupidity, I have all my vital records up there.

Over the months, I forgot the subjects of e-mails and names of folders. (Many times, I had passed the security hurdle only to be stopped by stuff in a language I don't speak).

What now?

What gives Micro$oft the right to safeguard its customers' free Hotmail accounts? Don't they get that people do travel now and then?!?

Any suggestions what to do about this?

Cheers!

OT: how's "Platinum" doing? Over the years, I've read eye-wateringly terrible reports on this forum...

It takes a change of attitude as well.

* Flag service taking too long? What a way to ruin the first class of the day! Students often will be like 10... 15 minutes late into a 50 minute class. Enough said.

* Once a week - forget it!

* Grammar centric material - yeah, but can they speak?!?

Something really bad happened to kill healthy young women.

And I doubt that the hotel wouldn't check the room for days. "Housekeeping", knock knock, then a discreet peek or more...

As for the $ 20,000 payment, how many meetings and then signatures did it require to release the funds? As a former government employee, I wonder. ($ 100 for a Work Permit involved several people...)

All I ever read about this case was here on TV. Wasn't there some industrial strength insecicide involved?

Wish the family could find closure!

Be warned - they are extremely tough, JMHO. From my own experience and with knowledge of colleagues who like me wasted time and money coming to Bangkok and all having to return empty handed. YMMV, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

It seems to be an attitude problem - and schools tend to forget the odd signature or whatever.

I'm sick and tired of these announcements. They sure talk the talk!

Take a close look at the drivers' permits and you will see these are often for someone else...

A friend got ripped off by a rogue taxi at Suvarnabhumi which refused to turn on the meter. We got the car's number and - you guessed it - nothing, nada.

The driver was a peculiar chap - very short etc.

The same thing is's customary at schools. Long meetings, grand proclamations and then no action.

In the UK, they have to be a going concern. When they run out of cash - even for a single day - they have to close the company immediately!

What's the Thai law?

Thanks a lot!

I'm sorry - let him be guarded in hospital for treatment, then taken back to jail.

We can't have such criminals roam free "on bail".

a year ago, a young man with an Australian high school diploma was hired by a government high school. They claimed he wasn't a teacher though, but that was what he did. He got both, a WP and the status changed at Immigration.

While it is uncertain how a string of annual contracts are viewed by the court, it's clear this teacher should be entitled to a minimum of 1 month's severance payment (if he worked less than 1 year, even if it's for the 7th time).

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/761331-severance-at-private-and-at-government-schools-alike/