The new rules for an extension of stay for teachers and such

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The new rules for an extension of stay for teachers and such
Started by Mario2008, A minute ago thaiVisa.
#1 The new rules for an extension of stay for teachers and such

extensions of stay for teachers:
For teachers themselves nothing will change. The new rules even make it easier to change schools as instead of the WP itself you can also show the wp3 form indicating that you have applied for a new WP with a new school.

Extensions of stay for educational personnel:
It is here that there is now a change in the rules, as the rules now make a clear distinction between teachers and educational personnel.

The rules clarify which jobs are considered to be educational personnel as follows:
Person performing librarian, guidance, educational technology, registration and evaluation, general administration, supporter of education as specified by the Private Education Commission.

That seems to include teaching assistants. They now must have degree or experience that meet the work requirement and the ratio of alien employees shall not exceed 10 percent of total teachers or instructors in a particular education institution.

So you don't need to have a degree, but in that case you must have relevant work experience. For persons working as educational personnel that could mean they are grandfathered, as they will have relevant work experience next time they apply for an extension of stay.
(But If you are in the middle of your first year right now, I would not recommend changing jobs. They could say you don't have relevant work experience yet, better to finish your contract).

In all for most of the persons currently working in Education nothing has really changed, but newcomers without a degree will find it much harder to get a job in a regular school as they now must have relevant work experience.


For teaching at non-formal schools, such as language schools, nothing has changed and teachers there still don't need a teaching license or a degree.

 

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For extensions based on education a distiction is now being made between "general educational institutions" and "non-formal schools".

general educational institutions
general educational institutions are basically regular schools such as elementary schools, secondary schools and universities. For students at these facilities nothing has changed and they still get their 1 year extension of stay as usual with the normal proof.


non-formal schools
non-formal schools are:
Religious school: a school established by sole purpose of teaching religion
Art and Sports school: a school established to provide education of music, art and sports
Vocational school: a school established to provide vocational skills to be applied to further carrier or as an additional skill for learners
Tutoring school: a school established to provide additional knowledge parrarel to the general education curriculum
Skill Development school: established to develop talents, ideas and other skills of learners
I believe tutoring schools fall under non-formal schools.

For non-formal schools there are significant changes. While studying at a general education institution continues to give extensions of stay for up to 1 year at a time, a study at a non-formal school is now limited. They can now only get an extension of stay for 90 days maximum at a time and the duration of the stay based on the study cannot be longer than 1 year from date of entry into Thailand. For most non-formal schools the 90 day extension is of course nothing new,, but some immigration offices tended to give longer extensions than 90 days to these students. That is now no longer possible.

A big change is that you are only allowed to study up to 1 year from date of entry into Thailand. That means that after 1 year you have to leave the country and maybe apply for a new ED-visa.

Another big change, not in the new extension rules from immigration, is that the study requirements will be raised from a minimum of 4 hours a week to a minimum of 8 hours a week. Students are expected to attend school 4 days a week for 2 hours, it remains to be seen if going to school for 2 days a week for 4 hours will be acceptable.
This is at least the case in Bangkok and might be soon the case in other provinces also. (Bangkok immigration tends to follow national policy).

A consequences of the 8 hour requirement will be that a course that is currently approved as a 3 year course will now only have a value for 18 months. Another aspect is that the tuition fees now will have to be raised because of the extra teaching and the prices for a course will go up.

Again, this last is now only for Bangkok but will possibly soon be for the whole country.