I have been teaching as a volunteer at a government run elementary school officially since last year, unofficially since two and half years. My work permission was excepted at the employment office a year ago and with a trip to Lao I got a non immigrant B visa which was extended for one year when I returned. I was told then by the admin staff at the school that I would need to do a course to get a teachers permit. What this is I don't really know, but anyway the teacher who did this paper work for the visa extension last year retired six months ago and the new admin person who was meant to look after my paper work fell sick which kept him away from the school for two months.

Meanwhile the paperwork mounted up and my papers got forgotten. The time came for my visa to be extended and I still hadn’t done anything. So last week the immigration refused to extend my visa and I was forced to take another trip to Lao and apply for another 90 day non immigrant visa. Now that I'm back and the clock is ticking I have another problem and that it is the holiday period and the administration naturally have no interest in coming back to school to complete the work. and I'm unable to do much myself as I can't read or speak Thai.

While I was trying my best to sort things out during the holidays I came across one of your feeds, which read; How do I stay working as a teacher here for longer than two years? I presume you are talking about the two-year waiver that the TCT (Teachers Council of Thailand) granted teachers that were not qualified enough to apply for a teachers license but could show they were making the effort to actually get qualified. Well, for many teachers - especially those who have done nothing in the past two years - the two-year period is up. In many cases though, employers have been successful in getting a second extension to the waiver agreement (or so I’m led to believe) but other employers have been knocked back and teachers now face losing their jobs.

As with so many rules and regulations in Thailand - the colour is grey!

Peter