Teachers Website ( You Know Which One )

[stevemiddie]

Apparently the OTHER teachers website is reporting that due to the latest paedophile cases involving " teachers " the authorities are now proposing to randomly background check 1000 teachers.

No other info available though as to who quoted what etc.

[Prakanong]

I suggested this on another thread on here - then given the results it can be judged whether the exercise need to be expanded.

Problem is I would not trust their sampling or randomisation

[sriracha john]

Several reports on this here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...=151101&hl=

[Ijustwannateach]

Well, it will help most of us in the long run- make it clear that they don't want that type here- LEGALLY.

Of course, I seriously doubt most of these recently arrested- who were apparently running around in various jobs in various countries- were actually legal teachers here. The work permits don't allow that kind of behaviour. So of course we have to flog the legal teachers some more, because they're the easy targets. It'll take another few rounds of crackdown (including finally the admission that there is a problem here with the number of ILLEGAL teachers) before the message gets through- ILLEGAL TEACHERS AREN'T REGULATED NO MATTER HOW STRICT THE REGULATIONS ARE.

Sigh.

"S"

[TEFLMike]

I had to request a UK 'Police Criminal Record Check', only this year, which is required by the Thai Ministry of Labour, prior to a Work Permit being issued. Obviously there are already measures in place. All the police need to do is seek that information from the Ministry of Labour?

[Prakanong]

I had to request a UK 'Police Criminal Record Check', only this year, which is required by the Thai Ministry of Labour, prior to a Work Permit being issued. Obviously there are already measures in place. All the police need to do is seek that information from the Ministry of Labour?

Its not the guy's like you and the legal teachers that IJWT talks about though where the problems teachers are coming from.

To do it properly they will have to go through a sample of both legal and illegal (in inverted comma's) - then there are those grandfathered in - legal jobs even without degree's or police checks.

I know of other countries in the region do sampling on all permit holders in all jobs

[stevejones123]

I had to request a UK 'Police Criminal Record Check', only this year, which is required by the Thai Ministry of Labour, prior to a Work Permit being issued.

Problem is that EFL teachers teach foreigners and that means they normally live abroad. So demanding the UK check is pretty meaningless; in fact an individual can't get it. The British police used to refuse to give any certificate to those who hadn't been in the UK for the previous two years; now you can use the data protection act to get a meaningless piece of paper stating your convictions in the UK, if any.

[PeaceBlondie]

I just read half of the 28 million responses on that other forum (okay, maybe 38) and the announcement of the proposed random checks comes from the news items already posted on ThaiVisa, as Sriracha John has already pointed out.

Please refresh my memory: when did John Mark Carr get arrested for pretending to be a child killer? That's when the 'police check' thing started, I think. It hardly ever happened, though. Hit and miss, here and there, occasionally.

The Thai school systems are not SERIOUS about education.

[samsara]

I just read half of the 28 million responses on that other forum (okay, maybe 38) and the announcement of the proposed random checks comes from the news items already posted on ThaiVisa, as Sriracha John has already pointed out.

Please refresh my memory: when did John Mark Carr get arrested for pretending to be a child killer? That's when the 'police check' thing started, I think. It hardly ever happened, though. Hit and miss, here and there, occasionally.

The Thai school systems are not SERIOUS about education.

amen, brother.

[Prakanong]

I had to request a UK 'Police Criminal Record Check', only this year, which is required by the Thai Ministry of Labour, prior to a Work Permit being issued.

Problem is that EFL teachers teach foreigners and that means they normally live abroad. So demanding the UK check is pretty meaningless; in fact an individual can't get it. The British police used to refuse to give any certificate to those who hadn't been in the UK for the previous two years; now you can use the data protection act to get a meaningless piece of paper stating your convictions in the UK, if any.

I did not know you could not get a UK check after being out of the country for 2 years - this is the lowest level one as its an organisation has to apply for the more rigorous checks?

As you say though there are so many holes in the sytem for UK people!

[Ijustwannateach]

Actually, nevermind the police hysterics- I just realised- the government admitted that there are ONLY (roughly) 1000 foreign teachers working legally in Thailand! That's worth a thread of its own!

"S"

[mouse]

So how do they check on the teachers that are working here illegally, without work permit and in some cases even a valid visas. In other words only the ones following the law are subject to the law and it's scrutiny.

[Ijustwannateach]

^Well, that's the whole point, isn't it? And yet, the schools have yet to be punished for employing foreign teachers illegally (at least, as far as I know- never seen it reported).

"S"

[stevemiddie]

The Thai police only have some options for checks.................most of them limited.

To obtain the UK records they need to be an authority that is approved for random selections. The Royal Thai POlice are not authorised under UK law to obtain that.

They are however, able to access police checks IF a specific subject has been arrested or is part of a specific line of enquiry.

They also will have access to INTERPOL but that will only flag WANTED criminals and those that are on watch lists.

[Scott]

I think the Thai Police think that every country operates in a similar fashion as they do. They may be in for some surprises.

I am sure that most countries would be more than willing to share information on people who are actively wanted for a felony crime or have fled prosecution or are known felons, since most of this information is well within the public domain. Randomly selecting people and making inquiries sounds a little more like persecution than anything else.

It certainly is in everyones interest to stop the exploitation of children, however, this is probably not the most efficient method by which to do it.

[Prakanong]

I think the Thai Police think that every country operates in a similar fashion as they do. They may be in for some surprises.

I am sure that most countries would be more than willing to share information on people who are actively wanted for a felony crime or have fled prosecution or are known felons, since most of this information is well within the public domain. Randomly selecting people and making inquiries sounds a little more like persecution than anything else.

It certainly is in everyones interest to stop the exploitation of children, however, this is probably not the most efficient method by which to do it.

I can see the UK police for instance giving information about wanted people but i do not know if they would gladly hand over the criminal records of any UK person to the Thai police.

My pal who is a Deputy Ambassador once said to me when we were discussing another matter, "We do swap information with certain friendly countries" - he was talking about criminal records and by friendly countries he meant the likes of the USA, Singapore but not everyone and I can imagine Thailand is way down the list.

The only option I can see for the Thai's is to

Check the person is not wanted

Have the person get the 3rd level record check you can pay for as an individual and which does not cover everything (are spent convicyions on it for exmpl?)

If the person has been lioving outside the UK a record check from the police of the country has been in if they have been there a certain time (then again does Thailand hand these out themselves?)

[PeaceBlondie]

If the Thai educators and police were really serious about wanting to prevent known (convicted) criminals from teaching here, they could do the heavy lifting, the hard work, day after day for about five years. They don't have the will power in the first place, nor the resources or ability. They don't have the stamina to do the job right, and they know it. So they will say they will do it, and then they won't do it.