Educational Visa

[ricklev]

http://bangkok.craigslist.org/edu/345323908.html

No affiliation or idea if it will work, I just found it interesting.

[ovenman]

http://bangkok.craigslist.org/edu/345323908.html

No affiliation or idea if it will work, I just found it interesting.

Certainly reads like they're more interested in supplying applicants with the one-year visa than they are in detailing their Thai Culture Course.

[Maestro]

I guess it works the same way as Thai language or Thai boxing classes: minimum 4 hours per week (200 hours per year), minimum attendance 60%, the school must notify Immigration if a student’s attendance falls below the minimum required for the extension.

You can learn a lot about Thai culture in three years, ie in 360 – 600 hours. Ideally followed by a few years of Thai language classes, until one qualifies for an extension based on retirement.

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Maestro

[engrin]

there's a long thread about "tls" language school in the teflwatch forum and there's a write up on their homepage as well

[ricklev]

I just read the thread on teflwatch. Don't waste your time looking this up or researching this company. I'm sorry I posted it.

[Maestro]

The whole thing does indeed look funny, if not suspicious. The link in the OP points to a site intended for job offers but this advertisement is about a course being offered by a school. Most of the text is not describing the course, it talks about the visa. No information about the number of hours of class per day, the days of the week for classes, the cost (unless “compensation: 350 baht per jour” is the cost). The intention is quite obviously to attract the reader’s attention on the basis of the visa possibility.

But then, we have seen several other threads on ThaiVisa about the possibility of getting annual extensions of stay for study by taking Thai language lessons for a minimum number of hours per week. Nothing new here, but TLS does not seem to be very successful if they have to advertise in this manner. It is certainly a good idea to check out a school before you pay the fee in advance for a whole year, and having looked into TLS in some detail now, this school would not be high on my list.

At any rate, one should always consider the risks when signing up and paying for lessons for the principal or sole purpose of getting an annual extension of stay. What if you pay but the school does not deliver on its promise to get you the annual extension? What if students drop out and the school closes the class because it got too small, and your extension loses its validity? Or if the school goes bankrupt and shuts down?

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Maestro

[dr_Pat_Pong]

It all sounds very, very 'iffy' to me.

[richard10365]

I thought a Thai education visa was refered to an "ED" and not an "EV".