thailand FOREIGN TEACHERS CREDENTIALS TO BE CHECKED
“FOREIGN TEACHERS” CREDENTIALS TO BE CHECKED
To obtain a work permit to work legally in Thailand for a year, one of the requirements is to have a university degree, which needless to say, few foreign aspirant teachers have. Most of the reputable international schools recruit abroad, requiring high qualifications and experience, performing stringent background checks of their potential employees in the process. However, the vast majority of foreign teachers teach in local language schools or Thai government schools where screening and requirements are not so strict. For foreign aspirant teachers, the base requirement is a TEFL certificate. Following attendance on TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) courses run by local providers, (some of which leave much to be desired), the aspirant teachers, only partly qualified, need to further obtain false degrees in order to satisfy local regulations, especially those to relating to work permits. These false degrees are most often obtained from such places as the Kao Sarn Road.
This is a current loophole in the Thai recruitment regulations, which has allowed pedophiles, radically under-qualified individuals and other undesirables to teach in Thai schools. Some of these teachers have even been known to commit crimes against the students. Accordingly, the Thai authorities are keen to remedy the situation.
In order to correlate procedures and rectify current discrepancies, Pattaya Immigration set up a conference with the principals of international schools on 26th January at 10 am at the office of the Pattaya Immigration Authority.
Pattaya Immigration have especially requested the aid of the international schools in Chonburi Province to bring their recruitment procedures into line by checking on foreign teachers’ credentials with the supposed issuing authority.
At the conference, the Director, Police General Aithipol Aithisaranachai, advised the schools and other interested individuals on new screening methods, including recently amended accreditation procedures, outlined in the Thai Education Authority Regulation 606/2549 dated 8th September 2006, which was introduced on 1st October 2006.
On a recent check of credentials, 60 teachers from all Thai international schools nationwide were found to be in possession of false documentation, which is a deportable offence.
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Foreign teacher crackdown to continue
Foreign teachers will continue to be the target of Immigration crackdowns, Thai Immigration Chief Pol Lt Gen Suwat Tumrongsiskul confirmed during his recent visit to Phuket on Monday.
His agency, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education (MoE), will continue to conduct strict background checks on all foreigners applying for teaching jobs in the Kingdom.
Gen Suwat said Immigration agreed with the MoE that such a crackdown was necessary to prevent crime and to protect students from the unqualified foreign teachers and those with deviant sexual behavior that could put children at risk.
Gen Suwat, in Phuket to attend a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the new Phuket Immigration Office, confirmed that the new measures stemmed from the deportation last year of American John Mark Karr, a former suspect in the 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado.
Karr, a confessed pedophile who falsely confessed to the Ramsey murder, was teaching at a school in Bangkok. He was deported under personal escort by Gen Suwat, who told reporters in the US that he sang the Bee Gees song Words to Karr to lift his spirits during the trip stateside.
On a more serious note, Gen Suwat told Phuket reporters said that random checks of 1,000 foreigners teachers had turned up 65 whose academic credentials had been forged.
“This convinced us of the need to be more strict in checking teachers’ qualifications. We don’t want unqualified teachers or sexual deviants teaching Thai children. This crackdown will help us to better screen the backgrounds of people coming here to teach,†he said.
Gen Suwat admitted that it is difficult to ascertain a person’s sexual proclivities though such checks, but said that police could gain valuable information about applicants by checking to see if they had criminal records back in their home countries.
On October 1, Immigration began enforcing a measure limiting to 90 days [over any 180-day period] the length of stay of tourists entering the country on successive “visas-on-arrivalâ€. When asked if the new regulation had caused confusion and delays at Immigration checkpoints, Gen Suwat said the counting process was “no problem†for his officers, who could use a computer to help them count up the days.
He defended the new measure by saying it had little impact on legitimate long-stay tourists but was an effective way to prevent foreigners from using the free visas to stay in the country and work illegally.
“The 30-day tourist visa allows enough time for a tourist to travel around the country. If people want to work here, they should apply for a [non-immigrant] visa from the Thai embassy in their home country before coming,†he said.
Gen Suwat added that Immigration will continue to seek out and deport foreigners who overstay their visas and stay in the country working illegally, adding that nationals of China, India and Pakistan were among the most common offenders.
Regarding reports of long delays at Immigration checkpoints at Phuket International Airport, Gen Suwat said the situation has been improved by an increase in the number of Immigration officers posted there.
Additional officers could also be assigned there temporarily from other Immigration offices in the region if the need arises, he said.