Rumour, treat it as such
So I'm hearing a disturbing rumour over Yahoo IM right now. After that paedophile Karr case down in Thailand last year, the government is cracking down on foreign teachers, getting rid of the bad eggs. Now, that much is good. All across Asia, including China, there are too many bad people of a bunch of varieties of badness abusing the foreign teacher game. Cleaning up is good. But this rumour I'm being told is that a lot of those being kicked out of Thailand can't go to Korea because Korea is at least seriously investigating them, so they're headed for China.
So far the only hard article on the subject I have is this, and I guess there's more to be found here, but these are the two sites my friend has sent me. The rest he's telling me based on what he's reading, but I haven't had time to investigate myself.
Now, if it is true that we have Thailand's rejects heading for China, then this can only cause trouble for those of us already here. Sure, many of our fellow foreign teachers need trouble caused for them: The instant plane ride home kind of trouble. Like I said, there's too many bad people here, and a whole variety of different kinds of bad. We need to get rid of these people. But a clean up will mean trouble for all of us in some way or another.
First of all, we'll be competing with Thailand's rejects for jobs.
Second, some of us may well find ourselves working with this rubbish, which many of us have learnt from bitter experience, is never a good thing.
Third, a crackdown will mean all of us subjected to unkind scrutiny and suspicion cast on us all simply because we teach in China.
Oh, but wait, we already have to deal with wanker business types assuming the worst about us just cos we teach.....
UPDATE: My attempt at a Google search (Thailand teaching crackdown) doesn't turn up much useful. Top of the list is a forum post of an article taken from the Phuket Gazette dated February 7 this year. That's already a couple of weeks out of date. And the first response in the thread amounts to "Nothing new here, move along please", although he does add: "The newest thing here seems to be an admission that in fact this qualifications crackdown will not really prevent sex criminals from getting jobs, even though a suspected sex criminal is the cause of the crackdown." Adding 'China' to the search terms doesn't get any new results.
I'm trying 'Thailand foreign teacher forums' right now: Once again, nothing new seems to show up.
So how much do we have to worry about? My own research isn't showing up much to back up this rumour.
So far the only hard article on the subject I have is this, and I guess there's more to be found here, but these are the two sites my friend has sent me. The rest he's telling me based on what he's reading, but I haven't had time to investigate myself.
Now, if it is true that we have Thailand's rejects heading for China, then this can only cause trouble for those of us already here. Sure, many of our fellow foreign teachers need trouble caused for them: The instant plane ride home kind of trouble. Like I said, there's too many bad people here, and a whole variety of different kinds of bad. We need to get rid of these people. But a clean up will mean trouble for all of us in some way or another.
First of all, we'll be competing with Thailand's rejects for jobs.
Second, some of us may well find ourselves working with this rubbish, which many of us have learnt from bitter experience, is never a good thing.
Third, a crackdown will mean all of us subjected to unkind scrutiny and suspicion cast on us all simply because we teach in China.
Oh, but wait, we already have to deal with wanker business types assuming the worst about us just cos we teach.....
UPDATE: My attempt at a Google search (Thailand teaching crackdown) doesn't turn up much useful. Top of the list is a forum post of an article taken from the Phuket Gazette dated February 7 this year. That's already a couple of weeks out of date. And the first response in the thread amounts to "Nothing new here, move along please", although he does add: "The newest thing here seems to be an admission that in fact this qualifications crackdown will not really prevent sex criminals from getting jobs, even though a suspected sex criminal is the cause of the crackdown." Adding 'China' to the search terms doesn't get any new results.
I'm trying 'Thailand foreign teacher forums' right now: Once again, nothing new seems to show up.
So how much do we have to worry about? My own research isn't showing up much to back up this rumour.