Pattaya Immigration Tightening Up On Teachers

[mopenyang]

Is there anyone who can shine some more light on this?

http://www.pattayapeople.com/

[keenok]

Is there anyone who can shine some more light on this?

http://www.pattayapeople.com/

seems perfectly reasonable that unqualified people and (or) people with criminal convictions should be excluded. im sure teachers (real ones) have nothing to fear from the new regs.using fake qualifications and risking going to jail here is pretty risky ,if not plain stupid.

[Robski]

Agreed.

[Tyree D.]

sweep away the illegal immigrants

[jbsears]

I think they should let unqualified people teach conversational English and leave the grammar to the Thai teachers. Most Thai schools just don't pay enough to attract qualified teachers. A qualified teacher will go to Korea or Japan where the money can be as high as the salary for a teacher in the US. I wouldn't trust qualified teachers teaching here on low salaries; they must have ulterior motives for working here. If Thailand wants qualified teachers to work here long-term, it needs to provide funding for their salaries. So far only the top private schools are offering competitive salaries with Korea and Japan. But anyways the criminal checks are good.

Edited January 29, 2007 by jbsears

[PeaceBlondie]

We have a similar thread on this subject, with the same links provided by mopenyang, in the Teaching Forum.

It's important to have the best teachers that money can buy, teachers with the right qualifications (whatever that means), for our students in Thailand. One interesting statement, based on the colonel's remarks, is

"It was agreed that it is time that foreigners applying for work as teachers as well as foreigners already teaching here in Thailand should be seriously inspected and interviewed. Therefore, the officers explained to the schools and teaching institutions about the problems and according to the law issued on 8th September 2006, which demanded being implicated from 1st October 2006, should be finally respected."

Fine and excellent, in theory. But in actual practice, who checks the applicants - the schools, Labour, Immigration, or Education? What are the requirements? How do they check for fake degrees and transcripts of academic achievement? The schools usually cannot. The government usually cannot. Not even for criminal background checks.

If the apparently proposed rules are 'finally respected' and enforced, your kids would only get 'highly qualified Western educators with B.Ed.'s and so forth,' at genuine international schools charging a million baht for tuition per year, with the teachers earning 120,000 baht per month. Of the 30 private schools that were present at the meeting, how many of those schools have only best qualified teachers? Zero, soon, nada, zilch?

It's important. Maybe you farang in Pattaya who are paying high tuition can ask to see the credentials of your children's teachers.

[icecubes]

I do feel it's a case of dogs barking at the wrong tree.

Thailand need to look at there own thai teachers first.

and the Falangs later.

[wilko]

I think they should let unqualified people teach conversational English and leave the grammar to the Thai teachers. Most Thai schools just don't pay enough to attract qualified teachers. A qualified teacher will go to Korea or Japan where the money can be as high as the salary for a teacher in the US. I wouldn't trust qualified teachers teaching here on low salaries; they must have ulterior motives for working here. If Thailand wants qualified teachers to work here long-term, it needs to provide funding for their salaries. So far only the top private schools are offering competitive salaries with Korea and Japan. But anyways the criminal checks are good.

I clearly have no experience of the average grasp Thais have of English grammar after being taught by his fellow countrymen.