In response to the letter from Dave ('Kudos to the system', Ajarn Postbox, July 1st) In the first instance I am a fully qualified and licensed teacher as I have taken the appropriate steps to attain my Thai teachers licence unlike a lot of people here and I have been teaching not only in high schools but universities around the world lecturing and teaching. I hold IELTS and TOEFL examiners certificates and I do write the tests as well as assess students for university so I don't need to prove anything to anyone.

Dave quite rightly pointed out that there are three stages as shown in his response but my point is that how many teachers here don't have that certification but do a good job under difficult circumstances that the MOE make for us native English teachers. I did the Thai culture course and found it completely useless and a complete waste of time and I feel that this is just another money spinning scheme to rip off visiting teachers and so are the rest of the silly courses I had to do because they taught me nothing about Thai culture.

My point is if they make it harder instead of easier they will lose a lot of good teachers that they cannot afford to lose and the education of the young students will suffer because of the lack of foresight from the MOE and the governing bodies.

I believe that every child should be afforded the same educational standards regardless but how is that possible when the ministry of education will not help visiting teachers (as I hate the word foreigner) from other native speaking countries who are here to try and help their children attain a higher level of self consciousness and awareness to better themselves and to educate the next generation for Thailand.

In a very short period of time Thailand will enter the ASEAN community with countries such as Singapore who are far in advance of Thailand along with the rest of the ASEAN bunch. If the MOE want's to be able to compete with these countries they will need all the good teachers they can get and let's face the reality of it, most of the ministers in the government think that Thailand is not ready for ASEAN.....I would agree.

I would love to see a change in attitude towards visiting teachers from the MOE and from some of the Thai teachers and a more professional attitude and so called culturally aware Thai people and to be treated fairly and equally the same as any human being. Lets face it there are a million things wrong with the education system and the corrupt undertones of Thai society. We are here to educate your children. Give us a break and make life a little easier and stop bringing in silly rules.

Dr John Smith