Too good to be true but this is Thailand

Opinion

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Is this an April Fool joke?

Published on April 1, 2011 The Nation

Re: "Plan to hire native English speakers", March 30.

As a former English teacher, I nearly spilled my participles when I read that the Office of the Basic Education Commission plans to hire 300 native English-speaking teachers at a salary of Bt83,000 per month.

Those happy teachers will think they have died and gone to heaven, considering the pittance English teachers usually receive in Thailand. Even foreign ajarns at one of the major government universities start out with a basic salary of only Bt19,790, regardless of qualifications and experience, supplemented by a housing allowance of Bt8,000. Teachers at less prestigious institutions receive considerably less. The Obec will have hungry applicants lined up all the way from Bangkok to Korat. What godlike qualities will successful candidates possess to justify such a salary?

This looks like another one of those quick-fix ideas that occasionally surface in Thai bureaucracies - the magic bullet that will solve all problems. Hire 300 foreigners, throw money at them, and lo, problem solved. Thai students will be magically and instantaneously transformed into youthful Oxonians, all rattling away in English with perfect fluency and posh accents.

I wonder if the originators of this plan have considered how Thai teachers struggling to survive on Bt9,000 a month will feel when they find out that their foreign counterparts are raking in Bt83,000 a month.

If you want a recipe for rock-bottom morale among your Thai teachers, this is it.

Here's a better idea: If the quality of English-teaching in Thai schools is not up to snuff, train the Thai teachers you've already got. Once they're trained, give them decent working conditions and a substantial pay raise. There's nothing wrong with Thai teachers that adequate training, adequate pay and decent treatment won't fix. Yes, training them will be long, hard and expensive. It will also require sustained effort. Most worthwhile endeavours usually do. In teaching English, as in so many other activities, quick fixes rarely work, and there is no magic bullet.

S Tsow

Bangkok


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