Opening My Own School In Small Town Thailand

[janetplanet]

It has been suggested to me by my husband, his family etc. that I should stop looking for a teaching job and just open up my own small little school in his town. Does anyone have experience with this? How much would be typical price to charge students in rural thailand?

all advice welcome

[Ijustwannateach]

Aside from all the other legal complications facing a foreign business owner in Thailand, you will have the additional burden of requirements from the Ministry of Education; I believe one of them is that you must have a Thai director (at least on paper) with an advanced academic degree in education. It is really quite difficult to meet all the requirements, and if you aren't legal fairly soon after starting up, you make yourself prey to local predators once (if) you become successful. Furthermore, from your post, I assume you haven't been in Thailand or been teaching for long? If so, the support of a school in getting used to the job and the culture is quite valuable.

Alternately, you could simply teach private lessons in your home by word of mouth without establishing an official 'business.' As long as you have pretty powerful allies (i.e. your family & extended relatives) it probably won't be a problem, though it will still be technically illegal and not recommended, etc., etc.

In rural Thailand, I would be looking at charging a minimum of 300B/hr for teaching English to one student at home (no commute time), adding a bit more per extra student in the same class. You may want to adjust prices for the times more in demand (for example, a bit higher for the time right after regular school, a bit less for early evening).

Good luck.

"S"

[janetplanet]

Aside from all the other legal complications facing a foreign business owner in Thailand, you will have the additional burden of requirements from the Ministry of Education; I believe one of them is that you must have a Thai director (at least on paper) with an advanced academic degree in education. It is really quite difficult to meet all the requirements, and if you aren't legal fairly soon after starting up, you make yourself prey to local predators once (if) you become successful. Furthermore, from your post, I assume you haven't been in Thailand or been teaching for long? If so, the support of a school in getting used to the job and the culture is quite valuable.

Alternately, you could simply teach private lessons in your home by word of mouth without establishing an official 'business.' As long as you have pretty powerful allies (i.e. your family & extended relatives) it probably won't be a problem, though it will still be technically illegal and not recommended, etc., etc.

In rural Thailand, I would be looking at charging a minimum of 300B/hr for teaching English to one student at home (no commute time), adding a bit more per extra student in the same class. You may want to adjust prices for the times more in demand (for example, a bit higher for the time right after regular school, a bit less for early evening).

Good luck.

"S"

I didn't realize it would be so complicated. I have many years of teaching experience in various Asian countries so that isn't my main concern. Rather, I wondered how I could help the students in my husband's town. The townsfolk are constantly coming to me and saying I should teach in the town and not leave and go work in a big city. I guess it would be possible to arrange a job at the local school and then make some extra money teaching private lessons? Or I build a small building next to our home and start a school and hope nobody complains or just pay some officials off?

What do you think?

[Loaded]

You'll need to obtain a school licence first. This is not easy and there are many requirements and rules regarding the Director, curriculum and the building. The process takes a couple of years at least and until you obtain the school licence, you cannot obtain work permits for yourself or your teachers. Technically, you are not supposed to run classes as well. Welcome to Thailand.

Alternatively, as others have said, just teach privates without too much fuss and you'll be OK.

[aitch52]

Hi Jan

I am doing a TEFL course at the moment and we talked briefly about this very subject today. It seems that as long as there are no more than 7 students in one 'school room', then officialdom does not need to become involved and no licenses are required. I would obviously do a bit of clandestine checking up on this to be sure, our trainer though, is usually pretty spot on, as he has been teaching here for 15 years including teaching at his own private school (home).

Good Luck

Chris

PS I don't want to go to the big city either and am job hunting in the Phetchabun area.

[fred2007]

Aside from all the other legal complications facing a foreign business owner in Thailand, you will have the additional burden of requirements from the Ministry of Education; I believe one of them is that you must have a Thai director (at least on paper) with an advanced academic degree in education. It is really quite difficult to meet all the requirements, and if you aren't legal fairly soon after starting up, you make yourself prey to local predators once (if) you become successful. Furthermore, from your post, I assume you haven't been in Thailand or been teaching for long? If so, the support of a school in getting used to the job and the culture is quite valuable.

Alternately, you could simply teach private lessons in your home by word of mouth without establishing an official 'business.' As long as you have pretty powerful allies (i.e. your family & extended relatives) it probably won't be a problem, though it will still be technically illegal and not recommended, etc., etc.

In rural Thailand, I would be looking at charging a minimum of 300B/hr for teaching English to one student at home (no commute time), adding a bit more per extra student in the same class. You may want to adjust prices for the times more in demand (for example, a bit higher for the time right after regular school, a bit less for early evening).

Good luck.

"S"

You are not serious are you? 300B/hr We charge 300 per month and having

trouble getting enought students

[Ijustwannateach]

^There could be many reasons why you are having trouble with your business. In any case, no, I am not kidding.

[fred2007]

^There could be many reasons why you are having trouble with your business. In any case, no, I am not kidding.

So, I am not a Moderator or anything else but I still have a brain,My wife teaches english at home she not just teach the language but she makes every student welcome. She encourage the students to talk she shows them movies and music she even give's them snacks and drinks.

You get that at school? But village people don't have a lot of money to spend on anything I guess I take your advice and charge what you said and she will not have one student left.

[janetplanet]

Hi Jan

I am doing a TEFL course at the moment and we talked briefly about this very subject today. It seems that as long as there are no more than 7 students in one 'school room', then officialdom does not need to become involved and no licenses are required. I would obviously do a bit of clandestine checking up on this to be sure, our trainer though, is usually pretty spot on, as he has been teaching here for 15 years including teaching at his own private school (home).

Good Luck

Chris

PS I don't want to go to the big city either and am job hunting in the Phetchabun area.

Can you ask your trainer how much he thinks is reasonable per hour/per month? I think 300 baht per hour would really limit the number of students where I'm at...that is like the entire daily salary for one of the guys who cut palm.

[PeaceBlondie]

A friend of mine used to teach for peanuts in the village. He was not a native speaker of Thai or English, no uni training, no TEFL training, etc. So you can charge 8 satang per year if you wish.

[Hong Kong Phooey]

OP: Just sent you a PM. Hope it helps.

[Ijustwannateach]

For the mathematically challenged, I will just point out that my recommendation for 300B/hr is per class, starting with one student- with increases based on class size saving the individual class members money. If 300B/hr is an unrealistic goal in the area where you live, I doubt opening a school is an economical decision.

[Loaded]

I am doing a TEFL course at the moment and we talked briefly about this very subject today. It seems that as long as there are no more than 7 students in one 'school room', then officialdom does not need to become involved and no licenses are required. I would obviously do a bit of clandestine checking up on this to be sure, our trainer though, is usually pretty spot on, as he has been teaching here for 15 years including teaching at his own private school (home).

LOLs

Go to the Ministry of Education and ask or tell your trainer this morning that you plan to do this and watch his reaction. Think about it: he's saying a school can run with no licence, no building safety checks, no ministry of education requirements etc just because there are only 7 students. Me smells fish!

You can call home-teaching a private school if you wish but without the necessary licence he was teaching/operating illegally. Many people do this though.

Edited November 18, 2008 by Loaded

[Ski_Goong]

You are not serious are you? 300B/hr We charge 300 per month and having

trouble getting enought students

I think 300 baht an hour for PRIVATE/one on one lessons is quite cheap. I charge 600 Baht per hour and have no problems filling my classes. As of now, I have a waiting list for private lessons.

Ski....

[maccaroni man]

It has been suggested to me by my husband, his family etc. that I should stop looking for a teaching job and just open up my own small little school in his town. Does anyone have experience with this? How much would be typical price to charge students in rural thailand?

all advice welcome

trust me unless you have a child of your own that you want to be sure is getting a good education or you plan on doing it as a money making business, this is a can of worms that you do not want to open, the headaches will come from every direction the lack of clear information from the ministry of education, the teachers, the parents, the neighbors it just goes and goes.........

[Scott]

I and a friend set up a similar business in his house in a suburb of BKK. It's not a rich area, but people were very, very anxious to have their kids join. We set a starting goal of 500 baht per hour (for ourselves--and let the class size determine the cost). Of course, we actually made a lot more money than that, but that's how we structured it. There were some classes that had a large number of kids (meaning 7-10); there were others than 3 or 4. Occasionally someone would quit mid course or not sign up for the 2nd half and we would be stuck with 1 student for a time.

My friends girlfriend handled the signing up of kids, sold them books, set the course time for us etc. She was a good business person. They split up and we turned the whole thing over to a 'legitimate' school and went to work for them. There were a couple of reasons for this. First without her business accumen, knowledge of the language etc., we were going to have a difficult time and secondly, she was just superb at planning and getting students.

The agreement with the 'legit' school was they got us and the kids who had paid studied for free (or actually without paying again), so we didn't have reimburse anyone.

I wanted to unload the operation because of the responsibility and also because we were attracting attention and some envy--which I thought might cause problems down the road. The business gal had a brother was a policeman, but when my friend and her split, I wasn't sure if things would remain as easy. As a foreigner, you really don't want to deal with the BIB.

Best of luck to you.

[JGV]

The burocratic headaches in doing it yourself are enormous and should be avoided at first.

The most important factors:

1.Do you or people you know also know a Thai who has an educational degree who would be effectively the owner of enterprise. If yes he will clearly want a fee or percentage of profits.

2. Secondly in your town are there any other locations where English can be learned; either taught by Thais or non-Thais (include Filipino in this) If yes then it is likely if you are succesful your location will be passed onto Education dept and/or immigration iF NO READ BELOW

3. Start from home doing a few privates - charge no more than 50 Baht per student per hour' Less if there are no obvious middle classes in the town.

4. If this takes off after a year or so then maybe find a bigger location, take current students with you and do a good job. A good job,no competition for the cash and an education dept that prefer to be idle could be succesful but don't go into mass advertising - word of mouth is better.

OK

JGV

[aitch52]

Hi Jan

I am doing a TEFL course at the moment and we talked briefly about this very subject today. It seems that as long as there are no more than 7 students in one 'school room', then officialdom does not need to become involved and no licenses are required. I would obviously do a bit of clandestine checking up on this to be sure, our trainer though, is usually pretty spot on, as he has been teaching here for 15 years including teaching at his own private school (home).

Good Luck

Chris

PS I don't want to go to the big city either and am job hunting in the Phetchabun area.

Can you ask your trainer how much he thinks is reasonable per hour/per month? I think 300 baht per hour would really limit the number of students where I'm at...that is like the entire daily salary for one of the guys who cut palm.

Hi Jan

He recommends 400 Baht per class which for Khon Kaen is competitive, he suggests a 10.5 hour course for 4000 baht per class and in his experience he gets plenty of people re-booking for 10.5 hours at a time

Cheers

[toasted]

I did something similar to the OP's idea about fifteen years ago. I didn't go through all the legalities as set out by the MoE, but a Thai friend of mine took me along to the Amphur offices where I was introduced to the head honcho. He was delighted that I wanted to do this and cleared it for me, saying that it was of benefit to the town and that nobody would trouble me. Indeed, I taught employees of several government agencies and never had a sniff of a problem. I did this for just under two years before I moved on to other things. I charged 50 Baht per person per hour, with a maximum class size of 10, and had better paying work with local businesses, some of which developed more into doing their international business correspondence. I made some lifelong friends in the process. Great days. Hope that my experience helps the OP in some way, and PM me for more details if you like. Cheers.