Ministry of education

[dairy queen]

Dear All,

I've been reading through this forum for a while and found it a helpful resource to answer some of the questions i've had whilst in Thailand. Now i have a specific question i hope someone or even better, some people can help answer!

I've been thinking about setting up a language school for a while and i've done a lot of research into the process of setting up businesses in Thailand and the language school business itself (i used to work within it for a number of years). I have a question i can't find the answer to, what are the requirements to get a language school certified by the Ministry of Education? Does anybody have a link to the information?

One major question i have is: Is there any sort of minimum educational requirement/qualifications for the people involved in setting up the business?

Just to give a bit of a background, the school would focus on adult's and children's classes with corporate classes later on. The school would also operate outside of Bangkok.

Thanks for your help!

[Indo-Siam]

This is not my field of expertise, but I will share with you what I learned during preliminary investigation on behalf of a client who then disappeared (he didn't like what I told him).

You must get your school licensed by Education Ministry before you can actually open the doors.  To do this, you must submit in advance the educational credentials of teachers who you propose to have serve as your teachers.  Approval of your request will be significantly based on the assessment of the credentials of your teachers.

Requiremrents are very specific for whether you will be teaching children or adults, at your company-owned site, or at a schoool, or at a workplace, or at student's home.

I got my information from an American who previosuly served as DOS for a school here that specialized in preparing Thai college students for overseas undergraduate and graduate studies at English-speaking univeresities.  His advice was:  To get your school initially approved, you should present credentials of a group of coopertaive Thai educators with PhD's as your proposed teachers.  Later, once approived, you hire the teahers you will actually work with.

This seemed absurd to me, but he said that this was almost the only way to go.  His experience may have been only applicable to college-level English - I cannot tell.

Good luck!

Steve

Indo-Siam

[dairy queen]

Thanks very much for your help Steve, I very much appreciate it. I suspected something like this might be the case...at a well known school i taught at half the teachers submitted to teach on the bilingual program were fictitious...ridiculous but TIT!

[Kan Win]

I've been thinking about setting up a language school for a while

I have a question i can't find the answer to, what are the requirements to get a language school certified by the Ministry of Education?

One major question i have is:

Is there any sort of minimum educational requirement/qualifications for the people involved in setting up the business?

Thanks for your help!

Yes, I have,

Try typing the "i" with Capital "I"

Since you are thinking of  "setting up a language school " perphaps it will help a little.  LOL

Sorry for this post, but could not help myself ..........

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Dairy, are you a qualified teacher or an entrepreneur ?

[dairy queen]

Hey there Dr. P.P

Iam not exactly qualified teacher as i do not have a PGCE or a BED, however i worked in BKK for 3.5 years mostly teaching English. I wouldn't really consider myself an entrepreneur as of yet as the only business i have done on my own is selling and runing a few EFL/training courses to some companies in Bangkok (the most recognizable is Internet Thailand). I will be setting up the business with my girlfriend (she'll be my wife in the not too distant future) in her hometown outside Bangkok. There is a big market there, and only one other school run by a Thai teacher. Her family are very well connected in the town/area so that will smooth over a lot of issues. Added to that they own a lot of property in the area which sorts out the premises issue. It'll certainly be an experience...obviously there are risks associated with the venture, however i'm relatively young (26), so the way i see it i should take them now rather than later.

If you've got any advice (or anybody else reading this thread) please post it as i would be grateful.

(P.S. I'm sure there are mistakes in this post but i'm too lazy to check...been working all day and the nightcap is starting to kick in!)

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The very best of luck. A school outside of the City of Angles is a good idea.