QuoteReplyTopic: TEACHERS READ THIS!! Posted: 15 Mar 12 at 20:49
In yesterday's (14 Feb) Bangkok Post it confirmed the rumour that the government will pay a subsidy to all schools that employ native English speakers. This will be paid from the beginning of May under a budget of B500million aimed at increasing the number of foreign language teachers from the start of the new academic year of 2012.
I quote from Chinnapat Bhumirat, the Secretary-General to the Office of Basic Education Commission, 'Teaching of English and Chinese by native speakers is a priority.......'
The Subsidy is............Wait for it........ an unbelievable, B10,000 per month per native English speaking teacher.
Well I suppose there is one thing you can be sure of, and that is there will be very few natve English speakers in Thailand who will see a Baht of it. There will be a few principals that might be able to afford a nice(r) new car though!
Please don't tell the recently sacked teachers of KhamKaennakorn, Kaennakorn Wittayalai and others of this!!
Am I a cynic or what?
If you subscribe to any other forums it might be an idea to pass this information on as nobody seems to know much about this.
"If you subscribe to any other forums it might be an idea to pass this information on as nobody seems to know much about this."
It's not so much they don't know about it, it's more of a 'I'll believe it when I see it.' attitude. This isn't the first time...
As far as the 10k subsidy, the report I read said that the schools have to foot part of the salaries along with the 10k. So it's not an all or nothing deal.
Right now a lot of schools already do something like that. they get some of the money from the government budget, and the rest from the students/parents.
"Am I a cynic or what?"
It sure sounds like you are.
I'm sure you have good reasons for that, and are not just echoing what you heard or read on other forums.
"Well I suppose there is one thing you can be sure of, and that is there will be very few natve English speakers in Thailand who will see a Baht of it."
Many won't, but that's understandable. The subsidy is not intended to raise salaries of those already at the rate appropriate for their qualifications or locations.
You can argue what's appropriate all day, but that's neither here nor there in this latest scheme.
I'm sure the places you mentioned won't have any problems finding new replacement persons to teach at their schools.
There has been a hamd out from the MOE for as long as I can remember so this is just an extra. Thailand is worried now because of the Asean thing in 2015. As one member rightly said in another article about his students. They have been learning English for 6 years and still are no closer to learning the lingo. Us teachers plod along and never seem to give up trying to see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. Last term I saw one class 12 times the rest was some kind of activities that were far more worthy of their attention than survival English conversation. We all keep hearing the same old song that Thai students are shy and don't like to talk. Well it is about time they got over that as soon they will be left behind by countries like Malaysia and Viet Nam. Even on a recent trip to Laos I was invited to visit a school in Savanaket. They really made the effort to talk and did not seem too shy. Laziness is contagious here. Tell me more about the sacking of teachers in Khon Kaen please.
Tell me more about the sacking of teachers in Khon Kaen please.
If you must know...
The 5 foreign teachers at Kaen Nakhon Wittayalai High School (a school I taught at for 2.5 years) were "sacked" because the school is now employing an agency to handle their English language curriculum. That agency is called SINE. At least one of the teachers (the one who had been there the longest) was encouraged to "re-apply" through the agency in order to continue teaching at the school. What follows in red is SINE's ad from the "ajarn" website.
Just curious, Ben, but why are you so interested to know?
After training, successful candidates will be placed in government schools teaching our Total Conversation Program (TCP). Working in a dedicated classroom with multimedia equipment, you will deliver SINE’s PowerPoint-based TCP program following our standardized lesson scripts. We have positions in: Khon Kaen, Buriram, Samut Sakorn, Sisaket, Nakorn Rachasima, Udonthani, and Rangsit.
My wife came home from a meeting at her school this week to tell me the news that all the village schools in her group - 6 schools in all, I think - are now required to find native-speaking English teachers with a salary of 15,000baht/month on offer. None of these schools have ever had native-speaker English teacher before; indeed, all except one have never had an English teacher of any description before.
The 10,000 baht sum has clearly made a difference here and the Education Office concerned appears to have put its hand in its pocket to add a further 5,000 baht. So not a fantastic salary by any means but it's a start.
I doubt this'll tempt many foreigners to come here solely for the purpose of teaching in isolated villages but it might just encourage some of us non-teachers already living here to take the plunge and consider a spot of teaching, maybe part-time. The downside of that is that these people would be teaching completely on their own - remember these schools currrently have no Thai English teacher to help - and I can see many well-intentioned people taking these as their first teaching jobs, finding they don't like teaching after all and leaving the schools in the lurch, which might discourage the schools from further hiring.
I've taught very briefly myself, full-time for free in one of these schools, on a trial basis & on the understanding that the trial could be terminated immediately by either party. While the school liked me & wanted me to stay, I found I didn't enjoy it (uninterested kids mainly) and my complete lack of experience meant I felt I was doing a poor job so I quit. I won't be tempted to try again by the chance of a salary, however small, because I'd feel uneasy about doing the job solely for a salary rather than primarily with the kids' interests at heart. I'd love to help INDIVIDUAL motivated kids to learn but that doesn't seem to be an option, legally. Helping a Uni undergrad. with her English for engineering & maths - I was an Engineer by profession - was very satisfying but the girl was enthusiastic for both subjects so we actually achieved something but I think I enjoyed the maths aspect rather than English.
I am always curious when I hear of teachers being sacked. There was a reason and now I know. This happens a lot in Bangkok and back fires because the companies start with the idea of making a show of it. This doesn't last that long as the students eventually pick out a few they don't like and they change the teacher, so on and so forth. I worked for one of these companies once, didn't like it. Seems to me someone came in the backdoor and gave the school a deal and they went for it.
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TerryLH wrote:
