EDUCATION ARREST OF FOREIGN TEACHERS
Two held with fake qualifications
Two foreign nationals have been arrested for using fake qualification certificates to teach at a Bangkok school. Officers from the Immigration Police Bureau (IPB) apprehended Briton Allan Parson and Canadian Greg Morgan Mercer yesterday at a school in the Bang Khun Thian area where they were employed as English teachers.
They did not possess the required teaching qualifications, Lt-Gen Suwat Tumrongsiskul, the IPB commissioner, said.
''Although the suspects said they didn't intend to deceive anybody and just wanted to teach Thais language skills, the fact remains that they have violated the law,'' said Pol Lt-Gen Suwat.
Last year alone, 6,807 foreign nationals applied for a visa to teach in Thailand, he said.
Random background checks on 1,000 of them found that 65 produced false certificates to obtain their jobs. They were now being prosecuted.
He said some of them insisted they genuinely wanted to teach while others wanted to benefit from the long stay of up to one year afforded by the teaching visa.
Lt-Gen Suwat also said it was hard to screen out criminals on the run at the point of entry because most were not on any blacklist.
The Education Ministry would be asked to assist in verifying the qualifications of foreign teachers.
Bangkok Post