Blogs on Teaching and Living in Thailand

Discrimination is an unavoidable reality that we must recognize and come to terms with, regardless of our ethnicity or country of origin. Sometimes, we may benefit from positive discrimination based on our appearance, age, gender, race, or religion, while at other times, these very same factors may result in negative discrimination. The challenge lies in figuring out how to use discrimination to our advantage.

While many Western foreigners with no educational background, have the ability to leave their countries on holiday and choose to settle down on a beach with almost no planning, they are somehow still able to attain a high-paying job. Meanwhile, Asian teachers with Master's degrees in Education are trapped in low-paying jobs with no future, listening to the (western) alcoholic former lorry driver who is now a teaching manager, openly complain about how his sex worker "girlfriend" is cheating on him with her husband. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to improve your chances and the pay range of jobs available to you.

Figure out where you want to live and what the cost of living is there.

It's easy to be wrapped up when the salary seems to be the same or more than what you earn in your home country, but THAT is irrelevant. What you must know before making ANY decisions, is whether or not you can earn enough to cover your real living expenses. In Thailand, the color of skin (white) of a NNES (non native speaker of English) might be able to earn on par with a western native English speaker, regardless of actual skills or experience, but even the best-educated Asian NNES, may only make around 25,000 baht. That might seem acceptable at first, but you need to take into account your travel expenses, rent (2 months deposit +1 month’s rent upfront), visa costs (a number of schools will mess around with you on that), food, clothing, phone/internet, utilities, medical care and a vast array of emergencies from being harassed by cops for smoking a vape pen, to amy be having to pay a fine or and agency to sort out issues with immigration because your landlord "forgot" to file your TM 30, to medical emergencies. If you miss work due to illness you risk being fired and may not even be paid for your worked hours. You will need to have savings or a plan to deal with that kind of situation because it ALWAYS comes up. 

While a local Thai person may be able to survive on 15,000 baht a month, they also probably have family support, a home, a vehicle (local teachers get discounts when buying cars), access to local insurance, social security and retirement schemes and they also have access to "under the table" payments that you will know nothing about and which is not counted in their salary.

You, on the other hand, will likely have no family or friends locally, will have to invest in a large upfront payment to rent a place, and may have to share with a virtual stranger to get a nicer place (because many of the cheaper apartments rented by NNES (non-native speakers of English) do not have a kitchen or even a hot plate).

You will need to buy most of your food from outside, raising your risk of food poisoning and malnutrition if you only eat cheap white rice + protein-based meals (Thai people do not eat that many vegetables compared to other Asian communities. Vegetables and fruit are also comparatively expensive so you may not even be able to afford them daily). You will also need to deal with slow public transportation, which means it may only be 8 baht, but you could spend 2-3 hours to go somewhere you can get to in 15 min if you could spare 100 baht for a taxi or 65 baht for the BTS.

And forget about saving money to travel, visit home, or pay for debts. Compare all that to becoming an English language subject matter teacher in an international school, or a regular English teacher in a country like China or even Vietnam.

In short: make sure you can afford to get to your target country and make sure the salary makes your effort worthwhile.

Make a Western-style resume and consider using a Westernized nickname or pseudonym.

Remember, these schools don't care about actual teaching experience or quality but they care deeply about the perception of western influence. If your name clearly shows your ethnic background or is difficult to pronounce in the local language, it will become an excuse to discriminate against you. This in no way means their discrimination is valid or respectable. This is simply a situation of "do what you have to do for your own best interest".  In the same vein, make a Westernized resume that does not contain your photo, weight, height, age, or any other details that can be used to discriminate against you. When you must include something like gender, play into stereotypes if you have to, to get your foot in the door. Yes, "I am a male STEM professional specializing in Maths", and yes "I am a female kindergarten teacher who loves making children feel comfortable and happy". If stereotypes are detrimental to your goal job, avoid them like the plague. No, "I am a male kindergarten teacher with a passion for being near little kids". The immediate presumption that you are an unsafe person, regardless of your actual experience and ability. No, "I am a young teacher with an interest in corporate training but no real-world teaching experience". You don't have the vocabulary or knowledge base to teach the class and have outed yourself.

Stop applying for every job.

Somewhere, somehow, some people have developed this idea that EVERY opportunity is a GOOD opportunity and they are right. It's an excellent opportunity for a scammer or literal human traffickers to take advantage of you. It's a good opportunity for you to put yourself into serious danger that will take you YEARS to escape. This is also a great opportunity for you personally to contribute to lowering the pay standards for everyone from your country, across the board.

Why is it that you will never find a western NNES Teacher making less than 30,000 baht unless that teacher has a SERIOUS personal problem (literal pedophile, time in jail, social/personal problems that affect every part of their life)? Because they refuse to apply to any job offering less than that. Recruiters got the point and realized that they had to offer a minimum standard of living to get teachers of that demographic. So, what's the problem with Asian NNES? Lack of planning. Again, the thought that "it's the same/more than my home, so anything is ok" is not ok. You are not at home, you are alone in a foreign country and less than 30,000 is not acceptable. You can't just acknowledge that, you also have to convince others to also agree to that standard. Humility is not your friend in the workplace. It sets you up to be abused. When a horrible school posts an ad offering 15,000 baht for 45 hours a week to Filipino teachers, they are doing it because they KNOW that they will be spammed by dozens of Filipino teachers with no work experience who are willing to jump into an indentured servitude situations without even a single question. They have zero incentive to offer fair pay to Filipino teachers here because the teachers back home have "poisoned the well" by not bothering to look up the local cost of living or even the cost to move from the Philippines to Thailand legally.

In the past 16 months, the average salary offer for Filipino English teachers with a Master’s degree in education has gone from 25,000 down to 22,000. In the same time frame, the pay for white NES teachers with no teaching background has gone from 40,000 to about 36,000 due to the huge influx in tourism by "influencers" and "digital nomads" who promote the idea that completely untrained western foreigners can come here and get a job with no experience. Meanwhile, other Asian communities such a Myanmese, Nepalese, Pakistani, Indian, etc get offers ranging from 15,000-22,000 despite being the backbone of most of the Maths and Sciences programs for the more prestigious Thai schools. They also need to teach those subjects in English! When you see an ad offering crappy pay based solely on your nationality, just say no.

Stop yourself and think "am I worthy of a good standard of living and quality of life? Are my years of education and experience worth less than theirs, just because their skin color is white?" One or two people thinking twice won't change much, but when many people start ignoring those ads and they can't find any idiot to accept their offers, they will be forced to raise salaries. Look at how salaries in China tripled during Covid because of how few foreigners could get into the country. Be more exclusive to make yourself more valuable and if you can't get a well-priced offer from home, then stay home where you at least have the safety of family support while you pursue better opportunities.

Don't rely on Facebook ads, use job boards to find better-paying opportunities.

Why are there sooo few Asian teachers in the big international schools? It's not due to a lack in their teaching ability. It's because many are too nervous to apply. They assume they can not compete but this is where your westernized resume is going to shine. You can show them that you can do anything a white western teacher can do, just as well, and as such, you deserve similar pay. I'll be honest, you will be lowballed the vast majority of the time, but unlike in public schools or ads with hundreds of applicants, you get to negotiate and you also generally start with a higher initial offer. If you see an ad offering 90,000 for a teacher with your experience, read the requirements carefully, follow the application procedures as instructed and make your bid for it. The worst that can happen is nothing. The meh-ist that could happen is they offer you half of what they would give an NES (which is still double what you'd get normally), but more times than you'd expect, the best outcome does happen and NNES teachers get the position and the pay.

Read the instructions.

The vast majority of applicants immediately discard themselves by not even reading the entire ad. They are in such a stupid hurry to type "interested" that they don't even bother to read the instructions on how to actually apply, where to send the email, and what kind of experience or skills are required. Take a moment to actually read everything and then FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!

Beware of scams.

If the job offer seems amazing, it's not because the company is magically free of discrimination, it is because there is a serious problem going on. I'll give an example: a school in Bangkok hired multiple teachers with autism or other neurodivergent traits and was also advertising for students with similar disabilities. At first, this seems like an excellent opportunity for a mildly disabled teacher to help kids with similar problems. The reality is that the "school" was technically licensed as a daycare and had no curriculum. On further inspection, the owners were found to have been arrested in the US for sexually assaulting a child and had publicly made comments about not wanting to teach young kids but taking advantage of the situation to "train them up to do what we want". All other employees of the school had serious immigration problems such as overstaying or being refugees.  The owners were intentionally seeking out workers who would be unlikely to notice or speak out if they caught on to a serious problem. That school remains open, and due to Thai laws and the concept of "slander", the victims can not publicly report their experience beyond filing a police report.

Ask people about their experiences off the record and check reviews of schools very carefully. If a school has zero negative reviews, that does not mean they are perfect and it very well could mean that they are getting negative reviews taken down. It's normal to see some simple complaints or misunderstandings and those are not serious problems. In Thailand, any place that has only glowing reviews should not be trusted.
Similarly, there have been dozens of scams where NNES are offered high-paying tech or translation jobs with virtually no experience and instructed to come on a tourist visa, with 2 months’ worth of living expenses. Many of these people were then trafficked as slaves into Cambodia to work in Chinese gang-owned casinos or cryptocurrency mining operations. The Thai police and military regularly make incursions into Cambodia from Mae Sot to rescue some of these people.

Become a private tutor.

If you have valuable experience such as a math or science background, your skills are competitive. Not everyone can teach those topics well. The same goes for other languages, art, music etc. Subject matter teachers are highly desirable. A Chinese full-time school teacher is typically offered 25,000 baht a month for 40+ hours a week, but that same teacher could easily earn 10,000 a week, simply engaging only private students.

Unfortunately, Thailand is not a country that highly values private teaching, so your best bet is to offer services aimed at a particular ethnic group. If you can teach English in Chinese, then advertise for Chinese students and specialize in their learning requirements.

If your English is great and you have experience with SAT or IGCSE prep, you can even offer your services to Western foreigners who are homeschooling their children or who need specialized tutors.

The local people generally pay the lowest per hour, while foreigners generally pay the highest. This is true regardless of the country you are in. In Thailand, a subject matter tutor can earn anywhere from 350 (online) to 1000 baht (in person) per hour. The average daily pay for a white NES in a Thai public school is around 1300 baht, to put that into the context that is 2 hours of tutoring a day on average compared to a full-time 9+ hours day. Also, if you develop good relationships with subject matter teachers who aren't your direct competition, you can recommend each other and both come out looking more professional.

I offer English-related classes, Business, and Art but I am constantly approached about Math and Science classes. I can't teach them well, but I found a previous coworker from Bangladesh who was fantastic at it. He was able to equal his school salary with just one introduction to a tutoring job, with a starting hourly rate of 600. Since then I have sent him 3 other clients and he is now specializing in IGCSE and charging 800 baht per hour.

As you can see, teaching abroad is not easy and the pay can really affect your lifestyle. Always do your research, never accept lowball offers, and don't job hunt from a place of humility. Your skills are valuable and necessary, otherwise a local would be doing the job. Locals gain from exposure to your culture and experience, but should also pay a premium worthy of your investment. You are paying to live in their country when you could be comfortable at home with YOUR family and friends. They need to make the journey worthy of YOU. 

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Blog by Cici

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Note that the author of the blog is expressing personal thoughts and musings, which do not necessarily reflect those of KruTeacher. Therefore, KruTeacher.com cannot be held responsible for any potential inaccuracies that may be present in the blog.