I ask because a friend spoke to me some months ago about a problem that he had with his TEFL teaching english course at this language school - apparently, although they held a language school licence for their Phuket Town branch (Anna's Language School), they did not have such a licence for their Kamala school. So this friend had paid his tuition fees, completed the TEFL course and then could not get any TEFL certificate issued!! Apparently also, his TEFL teacher was not paid his salary....

I just had an American couple stay at my hotel who are going off to follow this TEFL course at the same language school in Kamala Beach. They have only paid a deposit, so if the school really doesn't have a licence, then there is still time for them to save the rest of their course fees and go elsewhere!

Does anyone have more details about this Kamala language school? (Of course, the US couple can simply ask to see their licence. But they are newly-arrived in Thailand and I worry that they may fobbed off with some excuse and persuaded to pay their fees).

Thanks

Simon

From what I've heard some places have licenses to operate as language schools but are not accredited to run TEFL courses and therefore the certificates are not recognized by Thai Ministry of Education.

When I enquired there were only 3 fully accredited TEFL courses in Phuket and none of those was based in Kamala but that could have changed.

I work with the school mentioned above. We have a valid TEFL Certification license issued by The Thai Ministry of Education and our certificates are Ministry-approved.

There was a problem, which stemmed from a bureaucratic mix-up when we transferred the school location from Patong to Kamala. We changed locations to offer our students a better facility and infrastructure for their TEFL teacher training. The problem has been resolved and we have issued all of our students their certificates.

I remember the student referenced by Simon clearly. We apologized profusely to him and all of our students who were affected, and shared our challenges with the MoE openly. As with the experience of many people here, sometimes the government seems to move slowly.

The upside of all of this is that now, Phuket has four options for MoE-approved TEFL training.