Crackdown On Foreign Teachers

[TEFLMike]

A little like watching Table Tennis or Cricket on the Radio ?

Allowing myself 24 hours to appreciate the flavours of posts since joining the Forums as a Newbie, I have spent most of yesterday, Thai Time, and UK Time, ploughing through many posts, both OPs' and replies.

I have, become mesmerised and pleased that there are so many intellectual people who utilise the site. I have become even spellbound by the shear implications and delights of the Thai way of life, with the odd reply allowing me the opportunity to have the odd, giggle and chuckle, especially with the utilisatation of the well chosen Emoticons.

Plus, the added advantage of perusing the Forums, allows one, the opportunity to become familiar with abbreviations, the climate and current trends of the Forums.

The result being, I am sticking around.

The new requirements contravene Thai Law in several aspects

Ignoring for the moment the famous contradiction of "you must have a Work Permit when applying for a Non Immigrant visa" coupled with "Work Permits will only be issued to holders of Non-Immigrant visas"......

There are the requirements of entry to the Kingdom to consider - If entering on a non-imm issued outside the kingdom, there is a time limit regarding how quickly you must present yourself to collect your work-permit, which in turn must have been applied for prior to your entry (I'm using the official interpretation here) but will only be issued after entry.

It is the job of the Work Permit office to ensure that you have all the relevant qualifications (and verify them) prior to issuing the work permit book.

However, prior to issuing the visa, the issuing authority also has to satisfy itself regarding the applicant's qualifications to do the work that is being used to sponsor the visa, and that the employer has complied with Thai law regarding being a qualified employer (No of Thai staff, cap inveted etc) and has applied for and received the relevant licenses to both employ the applicant in that role, and for the applicant to perform that role.

The upshot is - the employer has to verify the applicants qualifications and pass those verifications to the ministry of education who must also then verify them before issuing the teachers license, which is used in support of the visa application (Immigration / Consulate must also verify the applicants qualifications with the issuer if they think something is suspicious), and then the work permit office also has to do the same.

Now forgive me for being sceptical but two predictions surface here.

1. The transcripts record keeper is going to be mightily ticked off if they start getting four sets of verification requests each time someone applies for a job in Thailand - some teachers I know, work simultaneously at four or five establishments = 20 requests for transcript verification? (plus the ones from places where they only work for a short time before moving on - it could become 20 requests per year per teacher)

2. Someone has to pay for all this - if the government passes the cost to the schools, it'll come off salaries advertised. If the government decides to recover it from the applicant, visa and work permit fees will be rising substantially - perhaps to the point where no-one bothers staying in Thailand for more than one semester?

And that, in the end, may be exactly what they're after? How many times have you heard that Thai education employers want fresh blood every time because old hands know too much? Well, it looks like they might get their wish after all?

Gaz