Diploma Not A Degree

[canda]

I have a Diploma Of Teaching from an Australian Teachers College, not a degree, a TESOL Certificate and 24 years teaching experience in Secondary Schools in Sydney both as a classroom teacher and in Admin. I am now living in Phuket, will I be able to obtain a teaching position here without a degree? Thanks canda

[Scott]

Technically, you would not be able to teach. The diplomas are no longer recognized, you must have a Bachelor's degree. However, that being said, you might want to apply and have them try and process your paperwork. It just might go through, especially because you are an experienced teacher who has taught overseas.

It all depends on the person processing the papers and the office where it's being done. In your case, I'd give you a better than 50% chance of suceeding.

[Loaded]

Technically, you would not be able to teach. The diplomas are no longer recognized, you must have a Bachelor's degree.

Where is your evidence?

And anyway that's not what I was recently told by Khun Jiraporn of the Education Promotion Division, Office of the Private Education Commission in Bangkok(her translation) - she's responsible for checking the qualifications of teachers down there. A 2-year British HND is fine. pm for her phone number (landline with extention) if you wish to confirm.

[Scott]

No, I don't wish to confirm, and I don't wish to argue. My information comes from the M.O.E., which told us, we will not issue a request for a non-immigrant B visa for anyone who does not have a Bachelor's Degree.

We did submit for one person and sure enough it came back--rejected.

Here's what we have to submit:

Copy of every page of the passport

Copy of the University Degree (Bachelors or higher)

Verification letter of the Degree.

Police Clearance

English Language proficience exam, if they come from a country where English is not the main language.

Once that information is supplied the MOE issues a letter to the consulate/embassy requesting the person be granted a non-immigrant B visa. Once they have the visa, we have 90 days to process the paperwork for a Work Permit. In order to do that the person must show the Originals of all of the above information.

Can we employ other people--yes, but we can't get them the non-immigrant B or the Work Permit.

[Loaded]

Can I ask Scott?

Was this message passed to you by your Thai employers?

There has been a knee-jerk reaction by the authorities to the embarrassment Jon Mark Carr caused last year and I feel schools may have felt some of this pressure and a few schools are protecting themselves by telling their teachers things have changed when they haven't.

Apart from "we were told" and "I was shown a letter (in Thai that I can't read)" there isn't any other evidence to sunstantiate that there have been any significant changes to last year's requirements.

Cultural Awareness Testing - forgotten

Changes to the requirements to obtain Teacher Licence - no change

Police Checks - evidence suggests that this will also be forgotten very soon. In fact few teachers have been requested to present one and it appears many Thai consulates are just ignoring the requirement.

[Scott]

I work with an Administrative Assistant who is in contact with the MOE and the MOL. Usually on my behalf. She got it straight from them. She's an assistant and her job is to do the paperwork, so she doesn't have much to gain/lose by not giving it to me straight. She also sends in what I ask her to send in (that's how I know about rejections/requests for addition information etc).

Our administrators really don't know much about the situation at all. I am constantly having to explain to them why it's difficult to employee people or why it takes so much time. All I get from them is "It didn't used to be like that!"

I am also the one who gets the calls and emails from employees who are stuck at a consulate because they won't issue a visa based on what they have. We send most of our folks to Penang and our assistant is known to the consulate, so sometimes we can resolve the problem with a phone call.

Anybody who was hired and given a work permit before the new regulations came about is reasonably solid. We have a number of them working for us. The MOE and MOL has said they aren't going to backtrack on these. It's the new applicants and new employees--including people who have worked at other schools and quit that must meet the new regulations.

There are ways around some of these regulations and it does depend on who is processing the papers--some folks are very pedantic and others are less careful. Some offices also have a different "interpretation" of the rules. For example, our provincial office would not accept a TOEIC. In Bangkok Metropolitan area they would.

[Loaded]

Anybody who was hired and given a work permit before the new regulations came about is reasonably solid. We have a number of them working for us. The MOE and MOL has said they aren't going to backtrack on these. It's the new applicants and new employees--including people who have worked at other schools and quit that must meet the new regulations.

There are ways around some of these regulations and it does depend on who is processing the papers--some folks are very pedantic and others are less careful. Some offices also have a different "interpretation" of the rules. For example, our provincial office would not accept a TOEIC. In Bangkok Metropolitan area they would.

Can your administrator give a link to these 'new' regulations? What they are, who they apply to and where they come from? The MoE, MoL and MoI have websites and there must be a little a little hint of these changes.

I've also worked with administrators who em... well... don't tell the truth when they can't get something done. loss of face and all that. It might also be possible the admin is working under instructions from his/her boss.

I believe you're sincere Scott but there is no published account of these 'changes' which seems very strange and farang are told via administrators who may well have reason not to give a full picture.

[Ijustwannateach]

Most likely you are both right. Scott, your Admin Asst. is being told by someone, even someone at the MOE, that there are new regulations and they are such-and-such... and most likely, other people at other schools are calling and being told by other people at the MOE entirely different things.

Since there are no regulations firmly written down, as Loaded points out, they can play any games they want to and set different rules for different schools- which is the way that things have been for the last few years that I have been working here. It all depends on who you are and who you know and who you talk to.

"Steven"

[aussiestyle1983]

canda, you are more than qualified to teach and would have no problem getting a job. Given your experience and the fact that your teqaching qualification is recognised and was used in the country you obtained it in to legally work as a teacher (which you did for 24 years) should be enough for you to get legal as well.

If the MOE would not recognise you qualification (which enables you to become a qualified teacher in Australia) I would not even bother persuing the issue to teach in Thailand. As I said before, you will get a job, easily, but if you have to work illegally because the MOE won't recognise your qualifications, then it would be a problem for you.

Countries like the USA and many first world nations recognise these teaching qualifications because they realise that in Australia, the Dip in Teaching from the ATC is one of the ways to becoming a teacher in Australia. If the MOE won't recognise it and realise you obtained that qualification a long time ago because that was the thing you had to do in your country, I'd take your experience else where, Thailand does not deserve teachers like you if they want to play hard ball. They would rather teachers with bachelor degrees in engineering, shoe making, gambeling, drinking and other non teaching related fields to be teachers (they proably worry that real qualified would teachers make their perfect and highly qualified Thai teachers look like shit)

As for Scott, the only reason the MOE has informed your school that all teachers must have a BA to get legal is because your school chain is in their bad books. It is well known that there are many dodgy branches that hire un-qualified alcoholoics and so on so just because you school has been clamped down on by the MOE does not mean that all schools or other schools in your chain have the same requirements. I worked for one of the better, if not the best school is your chain of schools and was legal without a degree, so it just sounds like your school is in the shits. And, with all due respect, it sounds like your attitude is similar to the attitudes of the upper management of you school, they know-it-all but are always wrong

Edited June 18, 2007 by aussiestyle1983

[Scott]

Loaded, sorry I can't provide you with any links. I can tell you that our administrator doesn't take any interest in these problems. It is the assistant and myself. I can also tell you that they have unusually consistent in their demands.

It's difficult to get all the necessary paperwork together and so I routinely try to "sneak" things by them. They usually catch it and we get a call that they need something. It seems that much of what they work off is a sort of checklist.

I certainly don't make any claims to speak for anybody anywhere else, but in this area of BKK, that's the rules we have. Different offices will no doubt view the regulations differently to varying degrees.

In the case of the OP, I said that he was technically not able. I also said that he probably had a better than 50% chance of getting through. In the case of someone like him, I wouldn't hesitate to submit the papers on his behalf and I know that our assistant would certainly call and argue his case.