How Visa Changes Will Affect Farang Teachers

[PeaceBlondie]

The dust begins to settle on the new visa rules, and we've waited a week before saying on this Teaching in Thailand forum how these changes will affect the farang who teach here.

Do you know any visa-running teacher who's thinking of quitting?

Has anybody gone to their school and shown how the rule changes affect them?

Will it raise salaries, or make it more likely that a new employee will get a work permit quickly?

Or is every teacher you know 100% legal?

[richard10365]

I know one teacher who is quitting (but not right away) becasue of the new rules. His solution is to get legal.

So he is going to enroll in the International College here in Thailand and get his bachelors degree in English Communication.

The school he is teaching in is trying very hard to talk him out of quitting.

[Loaded]

I think in the future if a teacher arrives in Thailand with a non-immB already in their passport, they will be a very valuable commodity. The non-immB will become nearly as important as qualifications when schools are looking for teachers. I think some teachers will leave the country who currently work on VOAs. They have a choice: get a non-immB (difficult unless they go back to their home country), or work in another country.

Schools will have no choice but to become more organised and professional in the way they manage teachers. Teachers will have more security.

[Ladphrao]

Seems like the changes are of an evolutionary nature, the Thai education system is maturing and there will be fewer spots for cowboy teachers. I don't know many other countries in the world where teachers can work without paying taxes or having some sort of license, and Thailand is falling in line. It doesn't affect me personally, and I am not sure I like the changes, but this is "progress" in its own way and to be expected.

[PeaceBlondie]

I may be a Texan, , but I'm not a cowboy teacher.

I came to Thailand with everything including a one-year B visa, a real B.A., and right away took a real TEFL course, and I was treated like a cowboy, or a buffalo. So if I sound bitter or pessimistic, that's why.

The schools (govt., private, or language schools) that want to treat their staff right, already do, more or less. Because they have a good heart, they'll take the trouble to figure out how to make their farang legal, and they'll do it.

The schools of all kinds who never have treated their staff right (in my case, schools of 75 and 99 years), never will treat them right, because they have a black heart. In my bitter opinion.

I found that Thai school administrators don't like to learn how to do new things. Can't be bothered. They don't want to think too much. They'll get Filipinos, or Sri Lankans, or Sierra Leonese. Besides, folks from Sierra Leone are native speakers, you know, just like Kenyans!!

Sorry to be in a bad mood. Now I'll be cool.

[kenkannif]

No real change as it's not to drive anyone away just to get them on file.

So if you're not blacklisted or wanted....it will be the same old same old.

Actually going by the other site it seems more legalled up people are leaving (or saying they will leave).

[Loaded]

now we've had the coup, will the present authority implement TRT's planned changes? At the very least they will review anything connected to TRT.

Oct 1st -business as normal?

[Ijustwannateach]

Since Parliament is out, I suppose there will be government by decree for some time. However, the bureaucracies have not been eliminated and they have a certain degree of inertia. I'd imagine that we will see most of the new rules and regulations (within previously established laws) continue forward more or less as planned because they were already in the pipeline.

[PeaceBlondie]

Inertia indeed, the bureaucratic energy of a slow moving freight train. It takes a while to arrive, then has definite impact.

[mbkudu]

Inertia indeed, the bureaucratic energy of a slow moving freight train. It takes a while to arrive, then has definite impact.

I must tip my hat to you Blondie. When the train whistle first blew, I down played it as same old same old, but the train has definitely arrived. I'm just glad I've got my ticket.

[Tom Kagai]

I came to Thailand with everything including a one-year B visa, a real B.A., and right away took a real TEFL course, and I was treated like a cowboy, or a buffalo. So if I sound bitter or pessimistic, that's why.

In hindsight PB, what went wrong?

[PeaceBlondie]

I came to Thailand with everything including a one-year B visa, a real B.A., and right away took a real TEFL course, and I was treated like a cowboy, or a buffalo. So if I sound bitter or pessimistic, that's why.

In hindsight PB, what went wrong?

Well, if I may retract the "buffalo" remark, maybe I exaggerated. Sticking to the topic of paperwork, the first school hadn't been able to keep farang EFL teachers (for decades) more than a few weeks or months, so they just stopped trying to obey Thai laws. Which is one reason many farang packed their bags. The second school, 74 years old, just didn't know Thai employment law, and didn't want to learn (they're educators, not learners).

What went wrong, is that I accepted the conditions there, and worked illegally. That's my fault. You see, schools (back then, at least) didn't care one bit if their farang teachers were as illegal as a recently arrived Hill Tribe laborer from Burma. Not one bit. I was foolish to work without a permit. At that time, it had no effect; I just didn't get caught. Also, I got the bad luck of the draw.

Maybe, as usual, my case isn't typical. But I notice that the two Aussies who replaced us at the first school, went home quickly, and the revolving TEFL door still spins around, there. One guy (all but Ph.D. then) went on the fame and fortune; 5 out of the remaining 6 of us aren't teaching in Thailand now. Overall score, 2 out of 9 still teach, as far as I know.

And now, for year 2550? I'm sure there won't be as many guys like me, willing to work 'off the books.' I don't know if the educators are willing to learn how to employ people legally.

One last point, on the topic of Thai laws being broken by Thai employers, without meaning to sound racist. This is Thailand, and we're not Thais, and we farang are not in charge of schools. Far too many Thai schools operated by well educated Thais break the laws of Thailand. I don't tell somtan vendors to get a health card, and I couldn't tell the school director to learn how to do his job legally in Thailand. It's up to them.

[Tom Kagai]

I came to Thailand with everything including a one-year B visa, a real B.A., and right away took a real TEFL course, and I was treated like a cowboy, or a buffalo. So if I sound bitter or pessimistic, that's why.

In hindsight PB, what went wrong?

Well, if I may retract the "buffalo" remark, maybe I exaggerated. Sticking to the topic of paperwork, the first school hadn't been able to keep farang EFL teachers (for decades) more than a few weeks or months, so they just stopped trying to obey Thai laws. Which is one reason many farang packed their bags. The second school, 74 years old, just didn't know Thai employment law, and didn't want to learn (they're educators, not learners).

What went wrong, is that I accepted the conditions there, and worked illegally. That's my fault. You see, schools (back then, at least) didn't care one bit if their farang teachers were as illegal as a recently arrived Hill Tribe laborer from Burma. Not one bit. I was foolish to work without a permit. At that time, it had no effect; I just didn't get caught. Also, I got the bad luck of the draw.

Maybe, as usual, my case isn't typical. But I notice that the two Aussies who replaced us at the first school, went home quickly, and the revolving TEFL door still spins around, there. One guy (all but Ph.D. then) went on the fame and fortune; 5 out of the remaining 6 of us aren't teaching in Thailand now. Overall score, 2 out of 9 still teach, as far as I know.

And now, for year 2550? I'm sure there won't be as many guys like me, willing to work 'off the books.' I don't know if the educators are willing to learn how to employ people legally.

One last point, on the topic of Thai laws being broken by Thai employers, without meaning to sound racist. This is Thailand, and we're not Thais, and we farang are not in charge of schools. Far too many Thai schools operated by well educated Thais break the laws of Thailand. I don't tell somtan vendors to get a health card, and I couldn't tell the school director to learn how to do his job legally in Thailand. It's up to them.

Thanks. I think I now understand a bit about your predicament and your frustrations.

Your post caught my eye because you have all the right genuine qualifications, required to support an application for a WP & I was having trouble understanding why you didn't manage to get a tick in that box.

From what you've said though, it appears that the paperwork the schools have to produce, in order to get a farang teacher a WP, is so arduous that, in many cases, it doesn't get done (the inertia not being helped by the fact that it's the farang teacher's head that's on the block, not so much the employer, right?).

I'm just an 'on-looker' right now; To be honest, a potential newbie who almost got caught up by coming in at a time of great uncertainty. So, excuse me if any of my comments don't make sense; I'm not even in Thailand, so I may not have a 100% grasp of the employment climate, and especially the WP requirements.

So, in order to stay and keep doing what you do under the new ruling (i.e. no more repeated border hops), do you have the option of jetting off back to your country each year and getting a Non-im. B or will/can that be refused without a WP?

It does seem that, in the fullness of time, the WP procedures (for a school admin. dept.) will have to get easier, if native-speaking English teachers are to continue to be widely available to Thai students. However, as the visa changes are to address a macro-level issue, a big(?) segment of the farang teaching community is at risk of getting caught in the crossfire.

[PeaceBlondie]

Mr Bean, I don't know how daunting the paperwork burden is for a work permit. I had the list of things, and it's not as long as my forearm. But when we did get to the provincial Labour office, an experienced officer said, historically back to Siamese days perhaps, "We've never issued a work permit to a teacher before." He didn't even know where we'd send some of the paperwork to be approved!! And that's the job he was trained to do, partly by the senior teacher who brought us in there.....