The new extension rules for people studying

[itsuptome]

So is anyone studying at a school currently which requires four days per week for an ED visa?

Edited August 13, 2014 by itsuptome

[Holly1956]

Does anyone know if after studying for one year how long you have to leave the country for?

[Mario2008]

Does anyone know if after studying for one year how long you have to leave the country for?

There are no rules regarding that, so you could come back once you have the new ED-visa.

[mataleo]

For extensions based on education a distiction is now being made between "general educational institutions" and "non-formal schools".

general educational institutions

general educational institutions are basically regular schools such as elementary schools, secondary schools and universities. For students at these facilities nothing has changed and they still get their 1 year extension of stay as usual with the normal proof.

non-formal schools

non-formal schools are:

• Religious school: a school established by sole purpose of teaching religion
• Art and Sports school: a school established to provide education of music, art and sports
• Vocational school: a school established to provide vocational skills to be applied to further carrier or as an additional skill for learners
• Tutoring school: a school established to provide additional knowledge parrarel to the general education curriculum
• Skill Development school: established to develop talents, ideas and other skills of learners

I believe tutoring schools fall under non-formal schools.

For non-formal schools there are significant changes. While studying at a general education institution continues to give extensions of stay for up to 1 year at a time, a study at a non-formal school is now limited. They can now only get an extension of stay for 90 days maximum at a time and the duration of the stay based on the study cannot be longer than 1 year from date of entry into Thailand. For most non-formal schools the 90 day extension is of course nothing new,, but some immigration offices tended to give longer extensions than 90 days to these students. That is now no longer possible.

A big change is that you are only allowed to study up to 1 year from date of entry into Thailand. That means that after 1 year you have to leave the country and maybe apply for a new ED-visa.

Another big change, not in the new extension rules from immigration, is that the study requirements will be raised from a minimum of 4 hours a week to a minimum of 8 hours a week. Students are expected to attend school 4 days a week for 2 hours, it remains to be seen if going to school for 2 days a week for 4 hours will be acceptable.

This is at least the case in Bangkok and might be soon the case in other provinces also. (Bangkok immigration tends to follow national policy).

A consequences of the 8 hour requirement will be that a course that is currently approved as a 3 year course will now only have a value for 18 months. Another aspect is that the tuition fees now will have to be raised because of the extra teaching and the prices for a course will go up.

Again, this last is now only for Bangkok but will possibly soon be for the whole country.

I was told by guy who runs big school. That OP is rumor not in place in bkk. Its only being talked about....

And hard to implement as theres many small school with no facilities to accomodate students if rules changes

[jspill]

If you search these boards there are 'crackdowns' in 2009, 2011, 2013 too that never ended up being more than rumour.

[itsuptome]

As I read it the OP basically said two things:

1. ED visas for non-formal schools (like language schools) will be for 90 days and can be extended at Immigration every 90 days to a maximum of 12 months, at which point to continue studying you'd need to leave Thailand and acquire another visa. (Extended time out of the country is not required but there's no way to get an ED visa inside Thailand.) This is how things have always been at my school (actually a max of 15 months according to them).
2. The minimum study requirement for ED visas will be four days a week (two hours per day). For this one, my school said the Ministry of Education had been talking about this idea for a long time and liked it, but new curriculum would need to be developed and approved so there was no timeline or certainty that this would be implemented.

It's a big change for many schools if they implement #2, in addition to developing the curriculum and getting it approved, if most of their students are doing 4 hours a week right now and switch to 8, it'll require doubling their teaching staff, increasing the support staff to match, etc.

Which is why I would be surprised if #2 becomes a reality in the near future. But then again, the NCPO is in power and can do things very quickly if they want to. So who knows.

I don't really care either way, I go to a Thai language school in order to learn Thai. I attend class and I spend time outside of class studying, if they up the classroom hours I may do less on my own. Commuting 4x a week instead of 2x would be annoying though.

If you want to stay in Thailand as a tourist, not as a student, as far as I know it's still possible to get three consecutive double-entry (maybe even triple-entry) tourist visas, no questions asked. More than three if you can prove you have funds coming from outside the country and don't work here. I know guys who have been here on Thai tourist visas for years. Increasingly the "crackdown" is looking to me like it's really just targeted at the 30-day border runners, who were a) abusing the system, and not paying tourist visa fees, so of course Immigration was going to have a problem with them sooner or later.

But we'll see, no one has a crystal ball.

[falang07]

7 pages of discussion about unconfirmed rumors.

[paz]

7 pages of discussion about unconfirmed rumors.

Not rumors. The 90- days at time with a maximum of one year is official and published by Immigration.

It remain to be seem what will be the minimum attendance hoursand how the schools will actually do

[mataleo]

7 pages of discussion about unconfirmed rumors.

Not rumors. The 90- days at time with a maximum of one year is official and published by Immigration.

It remain to be seem what will be the minimum attendance hoursand how the schools will actually do

Yeh that bit its nothing new really.

Hours thing is not in place as of yet

[TheRascal]

If you search these boards there are 'crackdowns' in 2009, 2011, 2013 too that never ended up being more than rumour.

The other crackdowns do seem to be amounting to something though, people getting turned away at borders, questioned at airports etc. A friend of mine on an ED visa was made to write in Thai at the airport to prove he was studying.

[itsuptome]

If you search these boards there are 'crackdowns' in 2009, 2011, 2013 too that never ended up being more than rumour.

The other crackdowns do seem to be amounting to something though, people getting turned away at borders, questioned at airports etc. A friend of mine on an ED visa was made to write in Thai at the airport to prove he was studying.

You have a point that they've gotten stricter about enforcing the rules at the border and during extension applications. There have also been some reports of immigration officers that have bent the rules or been hostile with arrivals (but hey, that happens every day at LAX).

Still, as far as I can tell, there haven't been any big changes to the actual policies, at least not for tourist or ED visas. We can argue about what 'crackdown' means, but to date they've basically enforced existing policies a bit more strictly (testing language students, refusing people with serial 30 day stamps, etc.). The policies themselves haven't changed much if at all.

Which is WAY different from some of the nonsense you see people posting here like "anyone who only studies four hours a week is a fraud and not a real student," or "if you spend a year in Thailand you're not a tourist anymore," with some veiled reference to the "crackdown" suggesting that all these legitimate, visa-holding visitors are going to be thrown out. The mods work diligently remove those posts but new ones appear so fast that it's hard to track what is fact vs. what is some random dude grinding an axe, unless you only read ubonjoe's posts (which are excellent).

[kriswillems]

If somebody is really interested in studying Thai he would study much more than 4 hours per week.

The kind of student that studies the minimal amount of hours just to get a visa for Thailand is here for the wrong reasons (not for studying).

In that way, the old, fat, bold guy with the young Thai bride is much more respectable that the fake student.

I don't care what people do with their time as long as they're not hurting anyone else, but statements like this are so far from any conventional sense of ethics that they just blow my mind. This post needs to be featured somewhere.

"In a way, the fat beer-swilling retiree who dates prostitutes is much more respectable than the student who only studies part-time"

Astounding! Only in Thailand! Only on Thaivisa! You heard it here first, folks! May the sun never set on the Order of the Chang Tank Top!

I can't stop laughing at how outrageous this place is. I doubt the Thai government shares this point of view that prostitute-seeking retirees are more desirable guests than part-time students. Like I said, I believe in "live and let live." But if they are tightening up on part-time students, I can't help but wonder if other classes of visa are not far behind.

The fact that somebody is:

- fat

- bald

- old

- married to a younger woman

shouldn't matter in the process of getting a marriage visa.

The fact that somebody:

- does not go to school

- or only is prepared to sit in an airco room for 4 hours a week without really studying

should matter in the process of getting a student visa.

We should not blame other people when we are not able to get an ED-visa as a fake student.

A marriage visa is for those that are really married. A student visa is for those that really study.

Edited August 13, 2014 by kriswillems

[Mario2008]

1 post discussing moderation removed.

[TechnikaIII]

Speaking to this: "Students are expected to attend school 4 days a week for 2 hours, it remains to be seen if going to school for 2 days a week for 4 hours will be acceptable."

The 4 days @ 2 hours is clearly the demand of a disciplinarian, and NOT a qualified educator of the experience needed to make such decisions.

I studied Swedish at Melbourne University, where we had 4 contact hours per week. The first 2 on one day with the senior lecturer of "Germanic Languages", then the other 2 hours with the tutor. To keep up with the course, we were expected to learn 20 new words per day in addition to several written exercises.

The 2x2 is sufficient for mature aged students with a serious intent to study.

More frequent attendance, for shorter periods is suitable for younger students, for example 4 periods at 40 minutes each. The intensity of the lessons and expectations with regard to 'homework' being set according to age and maturity.

However, there has been such abuse of the system that the "angry Headmaster " has decided to haul everyone in for the same 'punishment'.

If the requirement was for 2x2 as I suggest, based on well founded university curricular, and the 90 day reporting replaced with an assessment test, this would weed out the frauds and send them packing, and increase the quality of classroom environments with better outcomes for all.

The 90 day exams could be funded by the money currently handed over to immigration for doing nothing. The schools would collect the same fee to cover the cost and be responsible for reporting delinquents. Verbal exams are face to face, but written tests can be anonymous, with exam ID numbers only. Simple to implement.

My edit: By the way, I have taught in secondary schools in Australia and Norway. My Swedish studies at Melbourne Uni began 1990 when I was 41, then in 1992 I moved to Norway, where I had to pretty much start again, with Norwegian, also gaining over the next 2 decades a working knowledge of Danish, so I could at least read and understand it.

I am 65 now and already making headway with Thai, writing a little each day. With the help of www.thai-language.com and www.thai2english.com + Google, I chat with Thai friends daily. I was intending to enroll at Walen Thai School in 2015 with an ED visa, but I usually stay at a place in Nakhon Sawan province. I refuse to stay in Bangkok for 4 days a week, so yes ... "it remains to be seen" if I will be continuing with the plan. I don't wish to be held in detention by an unqualified government official.

Edited August 13, 2014 by TechnikaIII

[madmonk888]

If you search these boards there are 'crackdowns' in 2009, 2011, 2013 too that never ended up being more than rumour.

The other crackdowns do seem to be amounting to something though, people getting turned away at borders, questioned at airports etc. A friend of mine on an ED visa was made to write in Thai at the airport to prove he was studying.

What did they ask him to write ? How long has he been on an ED visa ? was he entering on a new visa or an extension ?

[Maestro]

Removed a troll post.

[TheRascal]

He was only made to write "my name is...", he was on a re-entry permit of an existing visa. Someone else I know is coming back next week and as it's actually after 12th I'll be interested to see if that makes a difference.

4 x 2 hours a week isn't that much, especially in a class environment. I did 5 x 2 hours for a month 1 to 1 tuition at Baan Aksorn, now that was an intense course! On top of that there was about an hour of written homework everyday.

Right now I do two mornings a week at a school and then a few hours 1 to 1 tuition to really practise my reading and writing. I'm quite happy at that and making reasonable progress. I think I make more progress in two hours 1 to 1 tuition than I do with a couple of weeks of the standard lessons.

[madmonk888]

He was only made to write "my name is...", he was on a re-entry permit of an existing visa. Someone else I know is coming back next week and as it's actually after 12th I'll be interested to see if that makes a difference.

4 x 2 hours a week isn't that much, especially in a class environment. I did 5 x 2 hours for a month 1 to 1 tuition at Baan Aksorn, now that was an intense course! On top of that there was about an hour of written homework everyday.

Right now I do two mornings a week at a school and then a few hours 1 to 1 tuition to really practise my reading and writing. I'm quite happy at that and making reasonable progress. I think I make more progress in two hours 1 to 1 tuition than I do with a couple of weeks of the standard lessons.

Thanks for that, be interesting to here what happens with the other person after the 12th.

We all learn at different speeds, I personally find the tones difficult, have problems writing but can read pretty

well. So , if they asked me to write I might fail but some reading I might pass. I wonder if anyone is being asked why they are studying Thai

[TheRascal]

He was only made to write "my name is...", he was on a re-entry permit of an existing visa. Someone else I know is coming back next week and as it's actually after 12th I'll be interested to see if that makes a difference.

4 x 2 hours a week isn't that much, especially in a class environment. I did 5 x 2 hours for a month 1 to 1 tuition at Baan Aksorn, now that was an intense course! On top of that there was about an hour of written homework everyday.

Right now I do two mornings a week at a school and then a few hours 1 to 1 tuition to really practise my reading and writing. I'm quite happy at that and making reasonable progress. I think I make more progress in two hours 1 to 1 tuition than I do with a couple of weeks of the standard lessons.

Thanks for that, be interesting to here what happens with the other person after the 12th.

We all learn at different speeds, I personally find the tones difficult, have problems writing but can read pretty

well. So , if they asked me to write I might fail but some reading I might pass. I wonder if anyone is being asked why they are studying Thai

I'll update once he's back (or not as the case may be!).

I'm similar - reading is pretty easy where as writing is much harder, I guess with reading it's there in front of you so there's some frame of reference, with writing it's all from memory.

[TheRascal]

Response from Language Express at Ploenchit regarding the changes (received this via email after I emailed this evening).

As you mentioned before about a new regulation, we also have heard about this news for a while.

We are not sure this information is correct or not at this moment. If it's correct, we aren't sure when this new regulation will occur. At this moment, our students can extend 3 month ED VISA except some students who hasn't studied regularly.

We are going to contact to Immigration and Ministry of Education again tomorrow. If there are some changes, we will contact to you.

[Mario2008]

The information regarding not being to stay in Thailand on an ED-visa for longer than 1 year from date of entry when studying at a non-formal school comes directly from the new police order regulating the rules for an extension of stay. It will come in effect on August 29th.

[yumiyoshi]

I have a question. I entered Thailand on 23d of September 2013 by ED-visa. So, it will be 12 months this September.

The current stamp is till 9th of September, I have to go to Immigration or, according to the new rules, leave the country to get a new visa.

But my school says that I have one more extension till December.

They know about new rules, but they say that they had got a second letter from MOE for me and

it will be 12 months for me in December (I entered on September) due to this letter.

I insisted that Immigration counts 12 months from the date of entry, not from the date getting a letter from MOE.

Am I right?

So, I asked my school to prepare documents for extension next week and I want to go to Immigration before 29th of August while the new rule doesn't work,

and try to get 4th extension. Do I have any chance to get it? Thank you.

[Mario2008]

No one can predict what will happen. But I think it is wise to extend before the 29th and hopefully you will be OK.

[thailien8]

No one can predict what will happen. But I think it is wise to extend before the 29th and hopefully you will be OK.

My ED visa situation is similar to yumiyoshi. I've been studying Thai continuously since September 2012; Finished 15 months at Walen, then changed to another school at the start of 2014. My current visa extension expires on September 27. I was hoping to do this in Jomtien as usual, but my school director told me that I must instead leave Thailand and get a new ED visa abroad, in order to finish my final 3 months of study at his school. I plan to go back to the homeland in 2015.

I'm not happy about having to do this unexpected ED visa run so close to the end of my time in Thailand. Would it be possible for me to avoid this by going to Jomtien before August 29 to extend my ED visa one more time; even though that is nearly a month before my current extension expires?

[madmonk888]

I have been on an ED visa for over 3 years but I am on my last extension until October . I last left on a re entry and arrived back in March 2013. I am leaving on the 30th August and returning in September on my existing extension and my valid re entry permit. The new rules are confusing as to what a year is, when it is from and whether my

existing (and final ) extension will cause any questions. Why do we pay fees each year if it is not for a "new" yearly visa which is the extensions , so each time we pay we are registered for another year or am I crazy ? The

new system will obviously sort that out as people will have to leave the country every year.

[moe666]

New rules to increase the required study would be great news. Would Make it harder for the people that have no interest in studying and are just it in for visa. Awesome.

However 4x days a week should be changed to 4 hours for 2 days per week. 2 hours per day is a bit silly.

So because you are in a position to have a visa you think its ok that people under 50 who do not wish to be an ATM (marry) or have Thai children should not be allowed to stay ?

Typical of the mean spirited expats who are lucky to be able to get a visa for long stay. I hope they tighten up on retirement visas like making you apply yearly from your home country including police checks etc.

No wonder Thailand wants to get rid of long stay falangs, reading on Thaivisa shows how petty westerners who live here are. Better of with just 30 day max tourists should help clean up the sexpat scene

Take it easy there the only one with a problem seems to be you

[Bountyhuntr]

New rules to increase the required study would be great news. Would Make it harder for the people that have no interest in studying and are just it in for visa. Awesome.

However 4x days a week should be changed to 4 hours for 2 days per week. 2 hours per day is a bit silly.

So because you are in a position to have a visa you think its ok that people under 50 who do not wish to be an ATM (marry) or have Thai children should not be allowed to stay ?

Typical of the mean spirited expats who are lucky to be able to get a visa for long stay. I hope they tighten up on retirement visas like making you apply yearly from your home country including police checks etc.

No wonder Thailand wants to get rid of long stay falangs, reading on Thaivisa shows how petty westerners who live here are. Better of with just 30 day max tourists should help clean up the sexpat scene

Are you someone that abuses the visa for study but doesn't actually study? You're the person making hard for people that genuinely want to study, thailand doesn't need people like you.

p.s I'm no on a retirement visa, your posts tells me the person you are.

[yumiyoshi]

No one can predict what will happen. But I think it is wise to extend before the 29th and hopefully you will be OK.

My ED visa situation is similar to yumiyoshi. I've been studying Thai continuously since September 2012; Finished 15 months at Walen, then changed to another school at the start of 2014. My current visa extension expires on September 27. I was hoping to do this in Jomtien as usual, but my school director told me that I must instead leave Thailand and get a new ED visa abroad, in order to finish my final 3 months of study at his school. I plan to go back to the homeland in 2015.

I'm not happy about having to do this unexpected ED visa run so close to the end of my time in Thailand. Would it be possible for me to avoid this by going to Jomtien before August 29 to extend my ED visa one more time; even though that is nearly a month before my current extension expires?

Today I've got 4th extension till December (it will be 15 months in total by current ED). So, I think you have a chance to get one more extension too, if you come before Aug 29. Wish you luck!

[DerekMarshall]

Thanks for this clarification. Probably it will help many.

What if a student do vacation to his country for several weeks?

Re entry permit 1,000 bahts from immigration. I had to go back home for a few weeks while on an ED visa. No probs returning and remaining on the same ED visa and expiry date of such visa. 1,000 Bahts single 5,000 Bahts multi re-entry permit.

[paz]

1,000 Bahts single 5,000 Bahts multi re-entry permit.

re-entry multi 3,800 Bt at Immigration, 4,000 at airport.