Is Today The Day?

[aussiestyle1983]

Back to work today, Monday, 14th May.

What about the rest of you teachers, are you still on holidays? have you changed jobs? have you quit and left LOS? have you quit and stayed here deciding to live of your pension? or, do you start work again soon?

It will be very interesting over the next few weeks. With the "raids" that took place a few months ago, the growing number of problems in the country and the lack of qualified teachers, it will be interesting to see what changes occured or will be occuring, especially the ones that affect us teachers. This is Thailand and things, well at least at my school, don't change on a daily or monthly basis, they change on an hourly basis, and I'm sure there will be some very interesting changes taking place over the next few weeks..................

[Ijustwannateach]

Man, you ain't kiddin'.

[aussiestyle1983]

Thank god we got to have a half day...............

A lot of police around the school, I guess mainly for the traffic as sugested in another thread.

[Ijustwannateach]

After a year or two with relatively low turnover, suddenly this year we cycled through over a quarter of our staff. Fortunately, we're not at the bottom of the heap so we could replace fairly easily. Anyone else have some horror stories to share with us? Staff rooms empty now, or still "waiting" for the new hires to come in? Interviewing continuing during the first week of classes?

[aussiestyle1983]

Our 2 new foriegn (Farang) teachers did not show up, no WP's for them so they quit, so I am still the only farang at my school with 19 excellent Fillipinos.

[PeaceBlondie]

I sometimes run into teachers at international schools, and the ones on American schedules are gearing up for end of the year, while others keep going. But they definitely didn't have two months off just now. Those on Thai schedules are back, slaving in the coal mines of Thai TEFL and EP.

Me? At first I thought I didn't need no stinkin' pension, but after a while, it beats a stinkin' salary.

[aussiestyle1983]

I wish I could get a pension, at 24, I still have a long way to go, and the longer I stay here the less my Oz pension will be, if any Teaching here if you need to to earn a living is the last thing anyone should do. If you have a lot of cash or a pension and you teach because ou love teaching, you are in a better position to negotiate and so on...................

[TerryLH]

Work here with Thai Social Security for 180 months and when you reach retirement age you can collect a small pension.

[traveldog]

Terry, don't know if you are right on this.....I was told it is 10 years by my HR rep. which is 120 months no??? but not really interested in such a small pension anyway but others may be....anyway are you sure about the time frame. Was also told all my "deductions" will be refunded if I stop work prior to this time frame, also not sure if that is true or anyone has gotten their SS dedutions back. Thanks for any info...

[THAILIBAN]

I am not a teacher, but follow these threads anyway. and I am asking myself: Is the Thai society aware of what nonsense the government is doing (the Thaksin administration as well as the recent military government) by scaring the teachers away ?

I really wonder if this is a topic in Thai newspapers or TV.....

[PeaceBlondie]

I am not a teacher, but follow these threads anyway. and I am asking myself: Is the Thai society aware of what nonsense the government is doing (the Thaksin administration as well as the recent military government) by scaring the teachers away ?

I really wonder if this is a topic in Thai newspapers or TV.....

Good question; Thailiban; I'll try to give you the opinion of one farang teacher.

We're a drop in the bucket in the full picture of education in Thailand. All the foreign teachers put together don't represent 2% of all teachers, or 0.4% of all managment in education. Most of us teach beginner English to young Thais who aren't prepared or motivated to learn anything we're teaching.

If the ministers of the cabinet (education, labour, foreign affairs, immigration police's boss) ever sit down and discuss serious solutions to serious problems, farang teachers don't get half as much mention as the cleaning lady's children get.

[solo siam]

are 1 in 50 teachers in Thailand foreign? I didn't think it would be so much.

[PeaceBlondie]

Those were wild guesstimates. On two campuses with a tptal of maybe 295 Thai teachers, a Japanese and a Chinese, I was the only teacher of European ancestry. Maybe the figures are 0.72 % of all the teachers, and 0.01138 % of all the education administrators.

[aussiestyle1983]

A SMALL Thai pension is the problem. A small pension from a western country would still be a healty salary to live off here, for a foriegner, a Thai pension would be proably salted peanuts. I don't think it is a wise idea for anyone, even a complete loser, to plan to spend ten years in one Thai school just to get a small Thai pension, unless your talking a Intl school where they would be getting a high salary anyway. For the majority of us who earn less than 50K per month, I think moving to better schools untill you are offered a bigger salary would be the wiser thing to do. Hopefully you get a job paying 120K+ per month at a good school, then ten years there would be worth it.

Edited May 15, 2007 by aussiestyle1983

[TerryLH]

You don't have to spend the whole time at one place. You just need to be paying into Social Security.

I used to think it was 10 years, but saw something in the SS law that says 180 months.

About getting money back, there's something about that also, but I don't remember exactly what.

Yes, a small pension here isn't the same as a small pension in a western country. I was pointing out that there is at least something available.

Besides the pension after the long term, you get full medical benefits starting 3 months after you first enter the SS system. It's at designated hospitals, but I was given a choice of about 9 places to choose from, a combination of private and government hospitals.

For me it's a good deal, paying for all in patient and out patient care. Also includes all medicine.

Workmens comp is also part of the program, as are death, disability and pregnancy benefits.

Terry

Edited May 15, 2007 by TerryLH

[aussiestyle1983]

I understand your post, but I just think people considering comming here to teach because they earn a salary 5 times or more than the local salary and can have a nice lifestyle and look at hot women, need to think about their future. It might be a better option to spend all the time they plan wasting here back in their home country, where the future benifit would be a lot more, then they could come here and live comfortably on the western pension. This, of course, applies differently to people from different age groups and from different coumtries. But, as you describe it now, it sounds a lot better, but it seems there are still many strings attached to this pension deal here, and you are not the one who can control which way the strings pull, as with most other things here. Maybe the system will rip you off in the end, you just don't want to have to rely on it if you don't have to.....................

[TerryLH]

You're right about it not being a sensible thing for a youngster to count on. In my case, I'm way past that point.

I'm not counting on the pension here. If it turns out I get something, well, that's an unexpected bonus.

I do however get to take advantage of free medicine each month, averaging 5-6k. That's not bad for the 750 baht Social Security costs me each month.

[Rhys]

ADM changes... Class size for incomming freshman.. increased to a 250 classroom for non-English majors...

Purely economic reasons...

[aussiestyle1983]

A funny thing happened at my school that I wasn't aware of because I hadn't noticed. From the end of the last school year untill the start of this school year, so about an eight week period, the student population of our school jumped from 900 to 1,500! This seems to be a big increses compaired to the size of the school. Anyway, more students, more money.................

[PeaceBlondie]

Maybe your neighborhood is like some near the airport, where thousands of families have moved in. Have your class sizes grown by 15 or 20?

[aussiestyle1983]

We are 70 KMS from the airport! On the other side of the city in a very un-populated area. Each class has increased by at least 5 - 10 students. KG3 last year havd an average of 28 per class, this year 42 per class! The Thai teachers hate it, but I love it and say the more the merrier! Bring on 100.....................per class

[rott]

FAO PeaceBlondie mainly,

Just curious, after the previous speculation was May 2007 recruitment

any different to previous years?

When it came to the crunch did the consulates refuse visas to people

without degrees or police certificates, and did the possibility of this reduce the number of applicants at all?

rott

[Ijustwannateach]

Rott, a number of teachers, including PB, have been discussing this interesting issue in another thread or two- I'm going to merge this thread into the thread on recruitment at schools, and there's another quite lengthy thread about police checks as well as a poll on current results reported by our teacher members- so why don't you join us in those ongoing threads.

"Steven"

[geronimo]

Thank god we got to have a half day...............

A lot of police around the school, I guess mainly for the traffic as sugested in another thread.

Er If you teach in Pattani then there would be a lot of police around!!! Isn't that in the 3 troubled southern provinces???

[spectrum]

Our 2 new foriegn (Farang) teachers did not show up, no WP's for them so they quit, so I am still the only farang at my school with 19 excellent Fillipinos.

Aussiestyle, just wondering - why no work permits for the foreign teachers ? What about the Fillipinos - do they have work permits ?