My experience, with a few exceptions, mirrors yours, Mssabai. There are people who managed to get a TL and a Work Permit without a degree some years back and these have been acknowledged since that time. Personally, I know of one person who got a Work Permit with an Associate Degree, but he was hired to teach Health Education at the height of the Swine Flu scare. He also had a Work Permit from a previous school.

I also know people who manage to get a WP on their own, but I am guessing there is something less-than-legal in how they do it.

I have also heard that people teaching at language schools don't need a degree, but of the ones that I know of who offer a WP, they all ask for a degree.

Part of the crux of the problem is that some of the teachers without degrees, but with WP's got them years ago and may have been grandfathered through. A few threads have alluded to some schools in rural areas having 'connections' with the relevant ministries.

Right now, I don't think I would want to be a new teacher to Thailand and not have a degree. I think the options are getting pretty limited.

Here's a link to the TCT's Teacher License requirements.

http://www.ksp.or.th...Requirement.pdf

And here's the link to apply for a Provisional Teaching Permit AKA Teacher License Exemption.

http://www.ksp.or.th...ng%20permit.pdf

Also I can confirm that several teachers in our province received a TCT Teacher License Exemption letter without having a degree.

In my experience, which involves employing around 300 foreign teachers in the past few years, no one has been denied the TL Waiver. It seems pretty standard. We have not had any success with getting people the letter from the MOE for the non-immigrant B without a degree. We've been hassled because we had the degree, but not the transcripts. All degrees were verified.

Now, I do know of people who already had a non-immigrant B from elsewhere and it's not near as difficult to get it renewed with/without a degree. I don't know of any hassles with the Ministry of Labor, but everyone has been pretty well vetted by that time and any problems either resolved or the person is employed.

The exceptions (where I work) all seem to be with people who have been teaching here either for an extended period of time, or managed to get a non-immigrant B through another school and the waiver.

We've had a couple of people that we would have liked to employ because of outstanding ability. Rather than submit the paperwork and get rejected, a call was made by our very nice Administrative Assistant who works with these people. They were very clear--Don't bother.

It's harder than in the past to get a teaching job (legally) without a degree, that seems to be a fact.