innercircle wrote:"What I can't understand is that many of the posters inquiring about teaching, are younger men. Why not stay in your home country, make Western wages, and wait for your retirement?"
Maby some people dont wont to wait till they are old and crusty before they come to live in thailand, i know i wont to come back and live as soon as i can and i am only 34.
The way the goverments keep lifting the retirement age i will probly have to be 80 before i can retire here.
Have a look here:
post174523.html?hilit=Dave%20Folland#p174523
This guy lived and taught here for 21+ years. Unfortunately, he got sick and had to rely on the generosity of friends and strangers for his medical treatment. To add insult to injury, Rahaphat University, supposedly owed him a 50,000 baht bonus. Which to my knowledge, never has been paid out.
Or, how about the great working conditions and job security this poster writes about:
udru-students-have-enough-boycott-classes-t17882.html
UDRU STUDENTS HAVE HAD ENOUGH –PLAN TO BOYCOTT CLASSES
Last year UDRU Language Center employed a new director who has caused a lot of turbulence in the department. Erratic, some might even say chaotic, management has become the order of the day. The foreign teachers, who have been teaching there for up to a decade and have never received a complaint under the former management were always highly praised by the students for their dedication. Now these teachers have either been sacked for protesting against the new working conditions or simply harassed into handing in their resignations.
In May this year UDRU LC engaged a new foreign teacher in an attempt to fill one of the empty positions. From day one he supported the new management and their style, claiming that he had the answers to all teaching problems. He stated that the other foreign teachers were merely bullies when defending their educational styles and protecting the students against management’s shortcomings.
Today, only half way through the semester all of his classes have informed his supervisor that due to his arrogance, his being impossible to understand, and his being the worst teacher they ever had they are going to boycott these classes. They have requested he be replaced with one of the other foreign teachers. Since those teachers have all been either sacked or resigned this was denied as being impossible, and the students were told that they should be happy to have any foreign teacher.
I have been at UDRU for 10 years and I have never before experienced students threatening to boycott classes. This sends a clear signal about the performance of LC’s present management and the kind of foreign teachers they now are engaging.
It is sad to see how a well functioning educational department at Udon Thani’s only University has been allowed to sink into a complete morass. Especially when this is done so that a deeply incompetent and ego tripping management can have their way without regard to the well being of education and the students.
However, it is positive that the students are now fed up and ready to stand up to the administration saying enough is enough. After all the management can’t sack the students!
Jan Debel
English Computer Science Teacher
(Resigned)
innercircle, there are many men who have not waited until they are "old and crusty" to retire here, but these men, like myself, were conservative in their spending habits back home while working, saved money, invested wisely in 401k plans, IRA's, etc.
I retired at 52, hardly "old and crusty", IMO.
Thank God there wasn't an internet for me to cruise when I first visited here at 40, I might have got sucked into the mindset of "I'll move to Thailand now and teach English".
