I recently traveled a considerable distance to attend an interview for a position at an International school in the far north of Thailand.
All went swimmingly until I mentioned that I was Buddhist. After the interview the Foreign head teacher informed me that being Buddhist had raised a "red flag" with the christian owner. At no time had the school advertised for non buddhists.I didn't get the job, not that I would have taken it after such a display of religious intolerance. I guess its got to be a first. Discrimination in a Buddhist country on the grounds of being Buddhist. Only in Thailand!!!
As a matter of interest, is religious discrimination covered by any Thai statute?

Rob

In answer to Renee and the other ladies who have written in to the Postbox - all it takes is a little bit of organisation. Quite a number of years ago, we used to have an ajarn.com teachers' evening at The Londoner on Sukhumwit Road and they were very popular. I've been toying with the idea recently of re-organising such an event on perhaps a fortnightly or monthly basis. I think in these uncertain times, there are even more reasons for teachers to get together in an informal atmosphere and share information. Whether it's a ladies only event or open to all is neither here nor there. Female teachers would hopefully turn up in droves and naturally gravitate towards each other. It would be just nice to make a few new friends I guess. The first thing you need of course is a venue and there's never going to be a shortage of offers from restaurants or bars looking to fill the place early in the week. It also needs to be somewhere that's easy to get to for everybody. So if anyone has any suggestions on a venue, then I would happily talk to the owner or manager and I can give 'a teachers evening' all the publicity it needs on the ajarn website.

I have been approached before by that Mexican restaurant near the mouth of Sukhumwit 33, and indeed they started to promote a teachers evening. I never went though and I'm not sure if it was a success or not.

Bangkok Phil

In response to both "Good Women are Hard to Find" and "Where are all the Good People?" I know what both of you mean exactly.

I have been working in Thailand for over 7 years now and yes, it is sad to say, I have never really made any female friends at all. Sure, there are a few that I work with, but they are in their early 20s and only interested in going out to Khao San or wherever and partying it up every night. Needless to say, that is not my scene.

So - for all the "normal" foreign females out there who just want to get together for coffee, shopping, a few drinks, a movie, etc. - how do we meet each other? Where do you find women that are over the partying-every-night-stage, but too young for the my-husband-has-a-Thai-girlfriend stage?

Renee

I am writing in response to the letter posted by Justice for Chalkies.

Every person working in Thailand, who receives money for their labour, have the right to labour protection. If you are a Thai or foreigner, a doctor or a street sweeper, employed legally or illegally. You have rights under the Labour Protection Act of 1998 to fair working conditions, working hours, rate of pay, holiday, severance pay and so on.

However this is not true if you are a teacher or principal - foreign or Thai, working as a teacher at a Thai Private school. You are specifically excluded from the Labour protection Act, as from January 2009. And it appears there is no law in place that protects your rights as an employee.

The implication of this is immense.
Effectively it means that a private school can do whatever they like, provided that it does not violate the conditions of a signed contract. For example. If a contract states that the school will deduct xxx baht if you are late a few times, or for leaving your aircon running overnight, they are in their rights to deduct this money - even if it is strictly prohibited under existing Thai Labour Law. Even though it would be unlawful if any employer in the Kingdom deducted money from their employees paycheck to impose a fine, its fine to do so if you are private school.

It also means that they can hire and fire you at will, and do not need to give you a reason to terminate you on the spot. If the contract states that you work say 10 hours a day, or 12, and you have to work 6 days a week, or 7 without a break, and you signed it, you are bound by it.

It also means that you have no right to legal recourse if you are on the receiving end of any unfair labour practice. You would also not have any claim to severance pay. So if you have worked for a school, regardless of whether it is on a rolling, or fixed contract, you will have no right to severance, no matter how long you have worked for them.

This has immense implications on the powers a private school has over its teachers. It implies that they have carte blanche on just about anything, and as a teacher, you have even less rights than the illegal/legal burmese worker that has been hired to clean your classroom.

Effectively it leaves a glaring hole in Thai labour Law, one which would need to be challenged in a Supreme Court.

I am not sure how an amendment like this got passed by the parliament , without anyone working for a Private Thai School not raising the alarm on waiving their most basic right as a worker in the process.

It is utterly demoralizing that this amendment gives free reign to private schools to use and abuse professionals at their will.

It will be interesting to see if, and when, someone wakes up and sets right this appalling oversight which effectively gives an illegal labourer in the Kingdom more rights than a Thai citizen.

No Justice to the Chalkies

Well, I had hoped to bring some good news to the foreign teachers of Thailand, but alas it is not to be. In fact, it is very bad.

Our case went down like the Titanic today. We had our labor law book and even the attorney that wrote the book. We had done our research and were trying to get ready to petition the school for further damages when we pulled the school registration and then the bomb went off.

I cannot address the issue of severence other than if the school is private it is up to the kindness in their hearts on this matter. But they have no law to force them to give out severance pay. However, public or for-profit schools are forced to pay. I did not ask about the international schools.

Several of us from a well know private school went to file a class action against the acts committed against us, ie..unfair dismissal, failure to notify, failure to abide by the Labor Protection Act, failure to follow contractual disciplinary guidelines, and also severence pay. What we found out was as follows.

For the rights of teachers at private schools. You have none. PERIOD. We just left our attorney and it has been shown that private schools are above all Thai laws. In fact, there is no law to regulate them. The only thing they must go by is their contract with the teacher. That is correct....They do not fall under any law or provision of the Thai Labor Protection Act. They are exempt.

It has now been shown without a doubt that the school owners have found a way to avoid paying benefits, severences, or exercising any form of labor rights for its employees while they get richer.

If you as a teacher work for a private school you are to expect nothing more than the contract they give you. So buyer beware......They can terminate at will, work as they chose, offer or not offer what they want and you have no recourse under Thai Labor Law. If you do not believe me you can go to a reputable lawyer of which we did and he/she will show you the law. And before you ask, "Yes, the Thai Supreme Court upheld this right to the private school".

It is simply amazing that the Thai government will not protect even it's own Thai citizens from the type of neglect and abuse from owners that have chosen to get around the labor and social protection laws to make themselves richer.

If you are working in Thailand or planning on coming to Thailand to teach, you need to be aware that you have not one single right under Thai Labor Protection Act if you work for a private school and they know this. They exploit this and the Thai government support it. Go elsewhere if you can. We are all leaving this great land and recommend it to no one except for a vacation.

schools that are not private or non-profit are accountable to the laws. If you have a renew letter or intent to renew a contract the contract is not viewed as a fixed term but a continuous contract. All laws apply to any other schools not in the above category. If our school were not private we were to be awarded seven months total pay plus our final 2 months and bonus.

We were just dumbfounded that the government would allow this obvious ruling to get around the law. It makes us think a major payoff was committed at a very high level. All in all, our law firm was just great. In fact, because we were dropped dead in the water, the law firm wavered all fees and charged us nothing. That in itself really impressed me.

The key is for teachers not to work for private schools. Nearly all the complaints we have found where teachers did not get paid was from privates and those paid were not privates. The worst schools seem to pay the best salaries just to keep the teachers in line and compliant. I do not have any information on international schools or how they are regulated. If I have to teach here agian, my first question will be are you registered as private or non-profitable? However, I highly suspect I will be leaving Thailand asap. China and Vietnam offer better pay and at least it cannot be any worse.

Justice for Chalkies

I guess the majority of ESL teachers in Thailand regard the Thailand Teacher's Council requirement to either complete a nine month weekend study Graduate Diploma of Teaching, or pass a set of exams (which all the evidence suggests are poorly written, highly subjective and for which the pass rate is pitifully low) as an unwelcome impost.

Nevertheless, for those of us who are committed to Thailand for the mid to long-term for whatever reason, this is a reality we have to deal with. At least two institutions in Bangkok offer a weekend study program leading to a Graduate Diploma of Teaching that fulfils the TCT requirements: Ramkamhaeng and St Theresa's. But nothing has been available for those many of us teaching upcountry.

Recently I inquired whether Ramkamhaeng would be willing to offer their weekend progam in Khon Kaen if there were sufficient numbers. Their response was yes, they will do it if we can find 14 people willing to commit. The price is 66,000 baht which is not chicken feed for those on a teacher's salary, but it is a lot less than St Theresa's program. They will accept payment in two instalments: the first two weeks before the course started (likely early June if numbers are there) and the second payment mid-term. We would probably host the program here at Mahathai.

I have at least three and possibly four teachers at Mahathai Boys School who want to do it. I wonder if there are other teachers out there in the KK province who would be seriously interested. If there are, I invite you to get in touch with me by email johnpenney_th@yahoo.com. Please only do so if you are willing to make the commitment to enrol. General information about the program is available on the Ramkamhaeng website.

John Penney

Is it true that The Ministry of Education requires teachers attaining the age of 60 to prove their capability of teaching ie ability, health etc.? My current school have said that an application has to be made to The MoE together with references before a contract is issued for the new school year. There is nothing on ajarn.com about this. Is it another nail in the coffin for foreign teachers?

Christopher

Are there any female teachers out there who would be willing to compile a fashion guide aimed at those teachers of the gentler sex? We've already got a fashion guide for men on the ajarn website but I know one or two ladies are feeling left out. Many of you write to me and ask about the availabilty of lingerie and shoes for the larger foot, etc and I tend to just blush and go all quiet. If you fancy giving it a go, then get in touch.

Bangkok Phil

Well I like the nice new colours on your revamped website, but in my opinion you missed the opportunity to make your site more teacher-friendly by increasing the number of days that resumes stay current from five days to seven i.e. weekly. Previous feedback from ajarn.com on this issue has been vehemently against such a simplified once-a-week procedure on the grounds that it makes it TOO easy (for teachers, presumably) - to which I would respond that life is hard enough already, so why make it any harder than it needs to be? I would be interested to hear ajarn.coms reason for keeping the counter-intuitive five-day requirement and whether I get a prize if you do change it.

Randy White

I am a teacher in Thailand. I have been teaching here legally for 5.5 yrs now. I hold a BA in TESL (teaching English as a second language). I am being told that I have to study this foreign teacher education course if i want to continue studying (which I have taken already... but for some reason, what the Thai government required and accepted before is no longer acceptable). So I decided to go the whole say and try and enroll in the Chulalongkorn University Masters of Education program. I would have thought that would be better... I mean, if a B.ED. is acceptable, why wouldn't a M. ED. be acceptable (even one from Thailand's top university). But as I am being told now, that is also unnacceptable. I must only take this certificate thing, only good here in Thailand, which may or may not change again in the future, and it is only offered in one place across from Ramkamhaeng University. Does anyone have any thoughts or information on this? i tried to call the MOE and no one answers the phone. I dont know who else to call. I have been teaching legally with my degree in 5 Asian countries for fifteen years now. Why is it all of a sudden so difficult to be a teacher? Please let me know anything that may be useful in any way. Billywjr@hotmail.com.

Phil says - while it would be great for someone to get in touch and give Billy some feedback, I won't be putting answers in this postbox section of the ajarn website. To be honest Billy, you might have been better off putting questions such as this on the ajarn discussion forum and having some of the members help you out. Please think about this everyone before you submit an entry to the Postbox. Does my enquiry or my questions, etc belong in the Postbox or on the ajarn discussion forum?

billy