The High Cost Of Teaching Legally In Thailand

[phetpeter]

Whats differcult to understand? I have worked 3 yrs starting 4th yr working for gov schools. To work legal is a simple process! Aletter from gov ed office, contract Both similar staing where, what and when including salary details. plus one more letter requesting extension or replacement of visa, make sure all have big rubber stamp!

Receipt for WP or currant WP. and if renewal or replacement make sure you have tax form payment.

If starting a new school ask for all docs before you start work. if renwing refuse to start work until done and make sure you get the school to start them one or two months before end of contract.

Don't wanna pay you for a month or two in Apl or May tell them OK, but they must backdate letters etc. for to stop having any gaps in service.

If they want you and like you they will do there best! If they won't perhaps you should look around before you get on their 'rocky' road!

By the way, it's not the paper that makes a good teacher, it's the person.

If its grates you soooo much, perhaps you are not good! can you anywhere, anytime pull a group of young students around you willing to listen and interact? i think thats the sign of a good teacher.

Remeber the job of a teacher is to point the student in the direction of knowledge. to encourage them to work it out not to spoonfeed them!

[Haddo]

"I have trained teachers in Thailand in all subject areas and in general I find them very professional and competent teachers who are dedicated to their job.

I see there point as the average teacher earns less than 15,000 baht a month. Another interesting point is that the average farang teacher earns 30,000 baht a month, while a full Thai university professor with an overseas phD would earn the same, of course there are a few other benifits such as housing they receive which the farang don't. These points should be kept in mind before criticizing the Thai education system which is not perfect, but they do have many dedicated and competent people working in it."

Woofer, you may wish to correct your spelling. We don't want any postings about the quality of English language training!

[garro]

davidwright, people who live in glass houses should probably not being throwing stones. Your spelling is quite poor, so perhaps instead of attacking a fellow poster you might try offering advice instead.

I was just about to offer a critique on David's post, but you saved me the bother. I would have felt bad about about it afterwards anyway

David, if you are going to criticise somebody else's writing skill, you should definitely double check your own post for mistakes first.

[rwhoov]

Apologies for being off topic here, but I want to repsond to some earlier posts. I'm presently studying English with the Open University and part of the course discussed the 'me and my boyfriend' vs 'my boyfriend and I' issue, and state both are perfectly acceptable (course U210). In fact this course left me realising that grammar and spelling are not as important as we like to think, though of course there should be a standard so we can agree what to teach.

I'm sorry, but if this "Open University" is teaching that using an objective pronoun as the subject of a sentence is okay then you seriously need to reconsider the source of your education. I would even suggest that if confusing objective and subjective pronouns is okay, please do not even consider teaching English anywhere!

[sbk]

We all make mistakes in spelling and grammar so let's just let that issue drop and get back to the topic at hand, thanks

[BlueSmurf]

davidwright, people who live in glass houses should probably not being throwing stones. Your spelling is quite poor, so perhaps instead of attacking a fellow poster you might try offering advice instead.

"I DO NOT LIVE IN A GLASS HOUSE", read the post again! I did offer advise, if you have the bent to teach , then you can teach hear or indeed anywhere subject to the correct qualifications.But the real advise come with the right attitude. NOT JUST FOR THE MONEY! ITS CLEAR ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE, so you have taken offence! offence intended.

[BlueSmurf]

davidwright, people who live in glass houses should probably not being throwing stones. Your spelling is quite poor, so perhaps instead of attacking a fellow poster you might try offering advice instead.

I was just about to offer a critique on David's post, but you saved me the bother. I would have felt bad about about it afterwards anyway

David, if you are going to criticise somebody else's writing skill, you should definitely double check your own post for mistakes first.

Yes point taken, but its early in the morning and I'am clearly not fully awake. Thanks for the comment. Certainly no offence taken by me..

[phetpeter]

here you all go again! perhaps it is the teacher who should be standing in the corner? You spell this wrong or is it me and her or her and me? It doesn't matter! English is a fluid language. It changes daily, most new words in the world are in English. There are NO barriers or rules to how it is used. your jobs as teachers is to encourage it use!

So! Shut up , sit down and come up with ways to make the work easier and pay more, and how to get the Thai's to treat us as welcome workers.

(Class over!)

Edited April 26, 2008 by peterandcat

[sbk]

Off-topic posts have been deleted. This is the Teaching in Thailand forum, and this thread is specifically about teaching legally in Thailand, so lets keep the topic on that instead. If you have other issues to address or other occupations to discuss then please do so elsewhere.

(and davidwright, I am a native English speaker, and a moderator and I was posting in that role. Lets just leave it at that instead of getting personal shall we?)

[paulandmaneerat]

I have just retired from teaching in Thailand. I am not a trained teacher as such but my secular experience over the years involved staff training and public speaking, so that helped. I would have liked to have continued teaching for another couple of years, but the MoE in its wisdom dictates that one cannot teach in a government school beyond 60. They permitted me to go to 62, but no further. I have been teaching English at Mattayom level for seven years, 3 years at, in my opinion, one of the finest government school English Programmes in Thailand, where I held a legal work permit and we had our own 'Immigration Angel' - a teacher dedicated to pursuing every opportunity to ensure the teachers were legal and remained legal.

For a while I handled the recruitment of teachers on behalf of the coordinator who was bogged down with other duties. We had 23 farang teachers, more than half had been with the school for 3 years or more when I left. Those were good teachers, not necessarily professional teachers, but good teachers. They were popular with their students and those students who cared enough to want to improve, did. Then there were the teachers that drifted in and out, staying just a few months. Some held very high technical qualifications, but teachers they were not. But at times when stress for extra teaching periods was being put on the existing teachers, it was easy to take on these 'qualified' persons and others, in the hope that it would work, but it rarely did.

Unfortunately many teachers in Thailand do not see it as a vocation. They see it as a ticket to 30,000 baht or so a month, enough to pay the rent, buy some beers and a few nights out in Sukhumvit. Lateness for work and the smell on the breath says it all. We wanted teachers to improve both themselves and their teaching ability. We had an internal Peer Observation Programme so that teachers could find the help they needed from each other, to project their teaching to the class more effectively. Strong accents and softly spoken teachers were the biggest problem. The teachers who saw teaching as a vocation made the effort to improve their teaching ability and are still there now among the core long term teachers, the others are gone with the wind.

My recommendation to the MoE, is that any person wanting to teach in Thailand (except those with verifiable degrees in the English language or Teaching), must first sit a six month course with an in-class teaching test at the end. This they must pay for. After that there would be help with getting into a school and a 90 day probationary period. Finally, they may or may not be offered a job, but if they were, it would come with a work permit and teacher's licence. Tough on those that fail, but teaching is a responsibility that effects the rest of a child's life and if would-be teachers are deemed not capable of that, they have no place in a classroom. So, no degree issues, no complicated regulations, just a simple system whereby people who WANT to teach and have willingly submitted to a brief training programme, have been given the opportunity to put it to good use. Police can simply visit schools on a regular basis to check credentials against persons. For most school with 2 or 3 foreign teachers, that will take 10 minutes. Incidentally, the 6 month training period also gives ample time for police to check for previous criminal records in home countries.

Oh, and one more recommendation to the MoE - raise the maximum age of a teacher at a government school to 65. I was looking forward to seeing my kids I taught in M1 finally leaving the school after M6. It was always a joy to me to see them in the corridors of the school as they advanced through their school years. Sadly that delight has been taken from me.

[BlueSmurf]

Off-topic posts have been deleted. This is the Teaching in Thailand forum, and this thread is specifically about teaching legally in Thailand, so lets keep the topic on that instead. If you have other issues to address or other occupations to discuss then please do so elsewhere.

(and davidwright, I am a native English speaker, and a moderator and I was posting in that role. Lets just leave it at that instead of getting personal shall we?)

Then if you are a moderator do not offer comment when you clearly did'nt read it properly!

As i said advise was given.

Have a nice day

[monkeyrock]

Ok, thanks everybody for the number of detailed information on the issue.

I am currently teaching in China and I was thinking about coming to Thailand starting in october... I have a BA in English and Spanish and I have a CELTA so I should be allright, I don't have any particular needs rather than land a job in a decent school able to provide a work permit etc, and I am not planning on a long-term staying.

I just want to ask, according to your experience, what would be the best move, and maybe, suggestions on which areas to look for a short-term job. Thai regulations change so fast that what seemed to be allright two months ago when I started to look into this completely puzzles me now.

Thanks!

[albertsproggins]

Firstly it would indeed be better if the 'Grammar Nazi's vented their spleen elswhere.In my experience the majority of the grammar nazi's are often actually incapable of teaching in a normal school setting and the grammar smokescreen is their protection.

My qualifications are a B.A. and a M.Ed. I personally have had no problems here,having lived and worked here in Thailand for more than 16 years.Salary level is up to you,it is posssible to earn good money here in the better international schools and indeed the better bi-lingual schools as well, research your prospective employers well before accepting the offer, it's called ''Common Sense''.

Sadly there are some rather suspect teachers out there,I know of one who claims to be a movie script writer and claims to have earned his Ph.D. in English from Cantebury University ( yes that is his spelling ) on line without ever attending or even seeing either a professor or attending the university in question through the tenure of his 3 year course !!

This guy teaches full time at grade P5 P6 level maths plus works after that at a language school to augment his income.

A Ph.D. and working in the above areas, I am of the opinion something may not be overly truthful about the man.

These are the characters that are giving the decent teachers a hard time and defrauding both employers and children along with the childrens parents too.

Edited April 26, 2008 by albertsproggins

[mark lamai]

one unsolved mystery is why would the MOE want to make it more difficult and expensive for a farang to be a teacher?

I can't believe that it arises from school's complaining about the low quality of teachers.

Its not about having better teachers, its about MOE looking good to its peers.

schools, in my experience, could not care less if a teacher is any good at teaching.

In Thailand, a good farang teacher is one who is on time, greets kids and parents, smiles a lot and makes the kids happy.

Learning anything is not important.

I have taught in Thai schools some years ago, I am a qualified teacher in Aus.

I would not teach again unless i was offered a minimum 80K with all expenses (visas, tests etc.) paid, holidays paid, decent resources in the school and all the other things needed to perform professionally.

For most schools, the english program is simply a way of making money and the farang teacher is just the factory fodder to keep the baht coming in from the parents.

So, naturally they don't care about outcomes apart from having a hassle free income stream.

I am still amused at some of teachers here who are being paid 30K and taking their job seriously,

why would you? It must be some sort of missionary zeal.

Pay - Performance Scale

30K = I will arrive most days, attend classes, max. 16x50min periods in a week, leave early, no farang showing off time.

40K = as above but i will have lesson plans and try a little bit to teach something.

50K = add clean shirts and shiny shoes and arrive in time for National Anthem.

70K = add smile a lot and never complain about school incompetence.

80K = some actual attempt to look professional and teach something.

Don't forget teaching in Thailand is a joke and should be treated as such.

[luluanator]

Teaching in Thailand can be frustrating when you consider the costs to become legal, that fact that you can't fail students- or at the very least teachers must fit them into preordained quotas (no more than 3 As, 8 Bs, 10 Cs, etc per class), and the endless plagiarism encountered from students, that is endlessly tolerated.

But, it can also be a great experience. I teach at a Thai university and it has to be the cushiest job I have ever had, and I have had many. Working at a university seems to exonerate one from many of the loops holes that teachers at elementary and secondary schools need to get through. And there are plenty of extra gigs that teachers can pick to make extra $$.

My husband used to work at a language school that employed 20 teachers, yet the government only granted this school 2 W permits per year. This school couldn't survive if they only employed 2 teachers. I think the government turns a blind eye on illegal teaching much of the time. Or at least they used to. (I've only back here for 4 months this time, so not sure about any new laws).

I think that Thailand should consider letting non-diploma holders teach, as long as they are good at it and have a SOLID foundation on English grammar- which many teachers, with or without diplomas don't have. If the diploma is so valued then those with them should be paid more. As many of us with them- especially from the US- are still paying back student loans. One monthly loan payment is about 20% of my monthly salary.

Edited April 26, 2008 by luluanator

[KireB]

you pay peanuts you get monkeys........I have a Bachelors degree, and have considered becoming an English teacher in Thailand, but it is hard to take a 150,000 baht drop in pay per month.

When money is your motivational drive, don't become a teacher, not in Thailand, not anywhere.

[cocopops]

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country.

Because demand is greater than supply? There is no reason to believe that preventing the unauthorized teachers from teaching will suddenly cause thousands of qualified individuals to arrive in Thailand ready to service the local market at a price it can reasonably be expected to pay.

So what? What's demand and supply got to do with a the rightness and wrongness of a country insisting on equal standards?

Isn't at best a little patronising to be discussing this topic implicit with the prejudice that it is somehow morally acceptable for Thais to accept lower standards than you would accept in your own country yourself? Quality is surely more likely to be better than quantity.

It is not about rightness and wrongness, but helpfulness. The last thing the developing world needs is more regulation. Do you think it would help Thai society if every building that doesn't meet the fire code in Australia were bulldozed tommorow? Or if the minimum wage were suddenly raised to 2000B a day?

These laws do not help any Thai people, they merely make it illegal for Thais to hire a certain class of teachers. The government needs to focus on helping Thai employees tell the wheat from the chaff so they can make informed decisions, not reduce the range of options so that employees can't afford to hire anyone at all.

Exactly the same principles apply in the first world. The government should limit itself to making sure consumers get what they pay for, not restricting their rights to make quality/cost tradeoffs as they see fit.

[BugJackBaron]

There always seems to be this comparison with Thailand, Japan and Korea.

Put it into perspective. In Korea you are going to be getting a salary of US$ 2,500 per month plus. That is 80,000 Baht a month. In Thailand they will pay you 30,000 Baht a month and refuse to pay for holidays which means you get a salary for 9 months of the year. That equates to 22,500 Baht a month.

Korea : 80,000 Baht a month

Thailand : 22,500 Baht a month

Who gets the most qualified teachers? You don't need to be a brain surgeon to work it out. Add on all the new costs in Thailand. Cultural course, new education course pay for your work permit. All in all you are going to have to spend another 60,000 Baht to earn your 22,500 Baht a month. Does that make financial sense?

As someone who has just finished teaching 10 years in Korea I can say there are a

lot of teachers there who probably should be doing something else. More than Thailand?

I have no way of knowing as I only vacation here.

Don't forget that housing and food in Korea - especially Seoul - are outrageously

expensive. You want western breakfast? If you can find it it will be 500Baht and also

taste like crap.

Also the air in Seoul makes Bangkok smell clean...

But yes people often only look at the money angle..

[mizzi39]

May I ask what, exactly, the new regulations are and what they entail?

If this would be too long winded then if we could maybe have a url please.

Many thanks

I am sure after reading this poster you have a good idea what the new regulations are. I was hired at a secondary government school right around the time these new regulations were being implemented (Thai culture course and tests) Since our new students started back 2 weeks ago there was no way for our school to get their foreign teachers qualified in time before the start of the new term. The director of our English program (who is Thai and thinks these new regulations are a total waste of time) made a call to the Teacher's Council who prepared exemption letters (exemption for teacher's license) to take to immigration. The exemption letter states that we have 2 years to meet the requirements and this being Thailand anything can happen in 2 years. So I just got my work permit and 1 year "B" visa thus making me legal. For every regulation there is a loop hole. Who ever is in charge of your contract should be working these angles for you.

[luluanator]

Here's a link to some info on the Thai Culture course.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6...quirements.html

[sbk]

Despite my last post I have had to delete posts. We will cease with the grammar lessons. Keep it on topic please

[markg]

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country. After all, the purpose of having these conditions is not to "have a go" at foreigners; rather, it's to provide the best quality education possible to Thais, to improve Thailand's image and confidence as a serious economy.

Good grief some people live in a dream world on here.

Nemo - and others, you want to pick and choose elements of developed nations' education policy (that of teacher qualifications) yet you are willing to completely overlook the failings in the Thai education system. If you want to compare two countries education systems then you have to look at the whole picture.

Anyone who has taught here can see that the problems of rote learning, copying and cheating, bribes and no fail policies are huge obstacles that are holding back progression, yet the only part some people want to copy from the west is how qualified teachers should be.

To compare Thailand's education system with a developed country is like comparing apples and pork. Both are food.

Some people deviate so far from reality that i wonder if they are in fact advising the TCT. Think about the logistics of some of your proposals. Think about how you're going to hire new teachers. The current process can take 2 months to find the right candidate. In the west, that isnt a huge problem because teaching is a PROFESSION. Here in Thailand, it is NOT a profession for foreigners. Pension? More than a one year contract? Promotion? Guarantee of visa extension? Teacher training? Further study encouraged and paid for by the employer? Nope.

Thailand wants to 'attract' teachers qualified to western standards but doesnt want to pay or give western standards of salary or benefits and working conditions. It is a ridiculous notion to even try to compare the two systems.

Finally - the suggestion that raising the bar to western standards will attract better teachers (again - no thought at all has been given to the logistical implementation of hiring and training these new teachers). Let's extrapolate this notion further - instead of raising the bar to western standards - lets raise it a bit higher. Why not? We will attract EVEN better teachers wont we? So, lets raise it to insisting that all teachers have a Phd as a minimum, in the subject that they want to teach. There now, that would improve things wouldnt it? Cos you need a fuc_king Phd to teach two sentences a week to a class of 40 Prathom kids who only ever speak English (occasionally) in English class.

Let's be quite clear about this. The Thai education system is not, and will never be, similar to that of a developed western nation. Many of the reasons for this lie in Thai/Buddhist and Confucian social reasons. The hierarchical system of Thai culture does not want free thinking and educated people. Lip service is paid to education, but the masses, in general, remain subjugated. Thai people like to compare their country to the west - often never actually having been there. Thai people actually believe that their university degrees are comparable to those in the west. :D They then believe that ALL teachers should be qualified similarly to teachers in the west - yet within the hallowed and shiny halls of the Ministry of Education and the TCT they cannot find one person to adequately write their licensing exam in English. Does anyone see a delicious fuc_kING irony in that?

Further training is good - of course - but we have to be realistic here.

Here is a simple analogy for the TCT to consider. Somchai owns a vehicle tyre shop. He takes tyres off wheels and puts new ones on. That's his job. He does it well. The some fuc_kWIT in the Ministry of Stupid fuc_king Ideas insists that Somchai has to become trained to Formula One Mechanic Standards and licensed by Ferrari. Somchai doesn't need to know how to fit a turbocharger to a V8 engine because his customers dont have engines like that. They just want new tyres.

Now then - Somchai HAS had further training in his profession, but it is expensive and unnecessary and at an unrealistic level for the market that he works in. Somchai closes his tyre shop in frustration and starts selling noodles from his samlor.

As for working completely legally. At our school - well, yes, kinda. For whatever reason, it takes our school 3 months to get a work permit. They apply as soon as the teacher has their none B but the various departments take their own sweet time and 3 months is how long it takes. So, technically, we have teachers working illegally for those 3 months. I know it isnt crime of the century, but technically it is illegal. I dont see a solution to that. We can hardly keep teaches on salary but sat at home for 3 months.

We only have one campus - so the work permit location is fine. We refuse to do 'other work' that isnt specified on our work permit - like serving up lunch to the kids for example.

As for doing privates, yeah most people do them i m sure. Our school turn a blind eye to it. We insist that teachers follow reasonably ethics though - which means not privately teaching kids from our own school. There is no conflict of interest there then - though i have spoken to teachers from other schools who see no conflict of interest at all in doing that. Hey ho!

The new culture course and TCT exam is going to make things a lot harder. The province that i am in do things this way. None B, teachers licence, work permit, extension to stay. Some provinces do things in a different order. Now the problem we will have if the TCT get their way is that we will get our new teaches in on a none B, then, if they dont get their TCT course done STRAIGHT AWAY they wont get their teachers license, which means they wont get their work permit or 1 year extension to stay. They will then HAVE to leave after their none B visa expires. We will then have to start the cycle again. Which potentially means having 3 new teachers per academic year - all working without papers.

And this is an improvement?

Edited April 26, 2008 by markg

[OldgitTom]

'GBSWALES' got it most right. I taught here & elsewhere for some time, now retired. Many mistakenly link qualifications to teacher quality.

If you are a native speaker, you are already an expert - unless you are a complete ignoramus with an impenetrable regional accent, that is.

TEFL, BA, etc., only begin to pay off towards & into higher education level. These jobs are few & far between. Mostly, it's "How many legs does the donkey have?" Down at that level is where the bulk of the jobs are, & personal qualities are more important.

I had all the bits of paper, legal, but many utterly unqualified types were far better teachers than me ("I" for the pedants).

The Thai Min. of Ed. has to respond to the teacher's union, which gets annoyed at farangs' higher pay. You can see their viewpoint.

Thailand did have a sound plan for English education post-WWII. Postgrad students were sent to the West & came back highly competent. Sadly, the economic boom happened, & most of the generation that should have trained Thailand's English teachers was seduced by the high-pay business sector. It takes a generation & heaps of money to turn round an education system - hence the attempts at various bureaucratic fixes.

The pay in Thailand is poor, but Thai life & culture are lovely. No like, want more money? Try other countries. I did, & was very glad to get back to LOS.

Edited April 26, 2008 by OldgitTom

[freitag1]

I think no matter if legal or not its very brave to teach in Thailand.

The salaries are a joke and additional requirements won't make anything better. They want to get the scum out of the country (those who stay here just for the booze and girls) but with this kind of move they screw all teachers. If this country ever, ever, ever want to step up in the food chain it all has to start with education. As some people mentioned before, I believe the ruling elite is interested in their own business and keeping the country stupid.

Stupid people are easier to control and influence, so more people who can read how foreign media reports about Thailand makes things worse for the crooks. I have no hope that Thailand changes anytime soon and making it harder to teach will just make the situation worse. It will make more teachers who really enjoy their profession and want to educate people (and not have another girl every evening) just leave the country. In other countries they have more students who actually want to learn. The scum will stay and try everything to stay because Thai girls are a unique feature of this country they can't get anywhere else.

[Kilgore Trout]

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country. After all, the purpose of having these conditions is not to "have a go" at foreigners; rather, it's to provide the best quality education possible to Thais, to improve Thailand's image and confidence as a serious economy.

You are seriously in outer space. There are only a couple of schools in all of Thailand that offer the professional standards and pay equal to what one with proper experience and credentioal would expect to recieve (taking into account getting less money just to be able to be in Thailand).

My take on this issue is that schools are using these new rules to hold more power over the heads of teachers who lack the proper qualifications (and some are very close, we are not talking about people with no education background but people who have been teaching for years with a bachelors degree and 20 masters degree credits in Ed.) I know someone who was refused a work permit even though he had nearly completed a master degree online from a reputable university in USA. Was told online credits are unnacceptable; however credits from ABAC are fine (go figure).

Thailand is putting more power in the hands of schools with these new requirements, even the crackdown last year only punished teachers who had no work permit (these people were at the mercy of their school, what can you do when the school has all your paper work and does nothing with it? What should one do really? Immigration busted them, teachers were arrested, the schools paid a measly fine and went back to the same behavior.

Do you really think Thailand wants to "provide the best quality education possible to Thais" as you said? Do you really think that? Do you really think the powers that be want Thais to be taught from an early age to think for themselves?

They want mickey mouse falangs singing and dancing in the class and bowing and kissing the feet of the Thai headmasters. Of this there is no doubt in my mind.

[markg]

They want mickey mouse falangs singing and dancing in the class and bowing and kissing the feet of the Thai headmasters. Of this there is no doubt in my mind.

Yep - that's about right. But now they want mickey to become Doctor Mickey (Phd, DiP Ed, PGCE)

[Fundi]

I hope you can help me. I possess a number of degrees including an University Diploma in Education as well as an Honours degree in Education. I have been teaching botany for many years at university level. Would I be able to teach English in Thailand with my qualifications, or would I be required to attain a qualification in the teaching of English? My diploma in education states that I am qualified to teach in the medium of English.

What are the salaries that teachers can expect?

[DrNox]

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country. After all, the purpose of having these conditions is not to "have a go" at foreigners; rather, it's to provide the best quality education possible to Thais, to improve Thailand's image and confidence as a serious economy.

You are right, increasing the quality of education is the right thing to do and requiring foreign teacher to have a proper background is good. Unfortunately, like so often the man and women that making the rules forgot to see the other side of the medallion. A foreigner who can fulfill all the requirements set will NOT work for 200-300 THB per hour as they would also not in there home country. Increasing requirements is fine, but you also need to increase the budget, in particularly the budget of the government schools. The result is painful visible, this semester there are simple not enough foreign English teachers available since the private schools that usually provide this teachers have more headaches then income from this. Every time i see the kids, mainly in the poorer government schools I get really upset, this kids loved to learn English and they don't understand why Khun Kru from last year can not come back.

There is no shortage on qualified teachers, there is simple a shortage on budget for qualified teachers. So, increase the current budget from 500 THB per hour to 1,000 THB per hour and the qualified teachers will stay here instate of moving to Korea, Vietnam or Japan where they are welcome, get high salaries and visas and work permits issued in no time.

[culicine]

I hope you can help me. I possess a number of degrees including an University Diploma in Education as well as an Honours degree in Education. I have been teaching botany for many years at university level. Would I be able to teach English in Thailand with my qualifications, or would I be required to attain a qualification in the teaching of English? My diploma in education states that I am qualified to teach in the medium of English.

What are the salaries that teachers can expect?

If your qualifications are for teaching students in highschools in a western school you can get a position in an international school here. The better international schools can pay up to 150K a month (70K-100K would be more a normal range I think). Many international schools aren't really "international" - the salary scale, accreditation, their teachers and their qualifications, and the student mix give indications of this.

If your qualifications meet the new criteria (and you qualify for the new TL), you won't have a problem getting a job. Even if you don't, at this stage, you should be ok, but it seems some people are having problems with visa extensions because of this. I don't know of any teacher in my school, to date, who has been refused an extension because of the new rules. They have been told to get a letter from the school, and they will get a 'provisional teachers licence', or something to that effect.

At the moment it's hard to see how the TCT would view your qualifications (the new teacher's licence is required by all teachers working in schools in Thailand, even international ones. The new rules affect teachers more in english programs, bilingual programs, and government schools, where many teachers don't have teaching qualifications from university. They might have a BA/BSc + tefl, but now this isn't good enough, or so it seems. The rules about this might change so watch this space.

[DrNox]

I hope you can help me. I possess a number of degrees including an University Diploma in Education as well as an Honours degree in Education. I have been teaching botany for many years at university level. Would I be able to teach English in Thailand with my qualifications, or would I be required to attain a qualification in the teaching of English? My diploma in education states that I am qualified to teach in the medium of English.

What are the salaries that teachers can expect?

If your criminal record is empty, you are definitive qualified.

As for salaries you can ether get paid by the hour starting at about 300 THB per hour or you get a fixed salary in the range of 30,000 THB.

Private languages schools some times pay a little more. But don't expect too much since the prices for languages courses usually set by the Ministry of Education. The school charges about 8,000-9,000 THB for a 20-hour course and can not increase it, because the MOE set the max. price. That makes a max. of 450 THB per hour income for the school and the school need to cover there other costs too.

There are schools that will employ you for more but often they fail to provide the proper teacher license and work permit. And remember, in Thailand you are same responsible for working without work permit then your employer.