Thailand To Hire 300 Native English-Speaking Teachers Salary:83,000 Baht per mon

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SHORTAGE OF ENGLISH TEACHERS

Plan to hire native English-speaking teachers
The Nation 2011-03-29

BANGKOK: -- The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) will seek a Bt350-million budget to hire 300 native English-speaking teachers for its primary and secondary schools to tackle the shortage of English teachers, a senior official said yesterday.

According to the proposal, the native speakers would each get about Bt1 million per year - a salary of Bt83,000 per month - compared with the Bt9,000 per month drawn by Thais teaching English.

Obec chief Chinaphat Phumirat said the foreign teachers would be from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Philippines.

Obec's secondary schools currently have only 25,000 Thai teachers who have graduated in the English language, while primary schools have 5,000 such teachers. He said the move in 2010 to employ 3,000 Thais who had graduated in the English language to teach at its primary schools had boosted the students' academic results greatly. Obec hence felt encouraged to consider employing more native speakers to teach at its schools.

Chinaphat said Obec was coordinating with the Foreign Ministry to recruit the native English-speakers, possibly retired teachers or teaching graduates in their fourth year of study who wanted to get experience in Thailand. They would be given annual contracts and would teach at district-level schools, he said.

Meetings will be held from April 22-24 to discuss the plan before it is submitted for the Cabinet's approval in May, he said. The plan would need a Bt350-million budget to hire 300 teachers for the period October 2011 to October 2012.

He said the plan was a five-year project aimed at hiring 1,000 teachers. However, they would hire 300 teachers in the first year to screen them first.