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Setting Up English School Legal Requirements.


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Hi.

I want to keep this first post short and basic, I will expand on things further in the thread.

Firstly I am not a teacher, but have a wealth of business knowledge and experience along with some cash.

My Thai family however have a very strong background in teaching and are very well connected in the industry.

They have been pushing the idea on me for about 3 years now of opening up an English language school, which I am now considering, but only at an exploratory level. meaning I will commence with creating a business plan. This requires a lot of spade work regarding legal obligations and a thorough costings exercise. I will only go with this as a purely logical business model. If the numbers don't stack up, it gets filed away in the 'bad ideas' cabinet.

I have been told that there is not a problem finding students here in Korat. I won't go into it now because I am confident that this is the case, will probably explain that one later.

I have spent all day reading through websites regarding the preparations for getting a premises licensed as a school, some conflicting that I will put down to the different dates of material out there. I was hoping that posting this on here, I could glean some helpful and up to date advice on the subject of setting up this mode of business.

I do have a few ideas of my own, but I think primarily with a business mind. A private language school is a business and should be approached as a business. The rest can be looked after by those who know the industry better than me. I do have some good resources at hand for just that.

All input is very welcome and please feel free to ask me questions which I will attempt to answer as best I can. Please... No slanderous comments about my wife and family or allegations of their intentions. (Just for trolls).

Edited by klubex99
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You'll need a certain amount of Thai employees, experienced teachers for different subjects. ( science, math....)

Offer basic English courses up to business English, based on the learners' needs.

Don't invest money in a joint venture business like E +. How much do you need to set up a language school, how much taxes will you have to pay? Cost of furniture, electricity, teaching material, salaries......

You'll need good and effective teaching material and those who can deliver it.

Almost all Thais doing any sort of business are eager to learn English now, from shop assistants to school directors. Train people for TOEIC examinations, as many companies require such a test.

Deliver quality and your school will be full. Good luck-wai2.gif

Edited by sirchai
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You'll need a certain amount of Thai employees, experienced teachers for different subjects. ( science, math....)

Offer basic English courses up to business English, based on the learners' needs.

Don't invest money in a joint venture business like E +. How much do you need to set up a language school, how much taxes will you have to pay? Cost of furniture, electricity, teaching material, salaries......

You'll need good and effective teaching material and those who can deliver it.

Almost all Thais doing any sort of business are eager to learn English now, from shop assistants to school directors. Train people for TOEIC examinations, as many companies require such a test.

Deliver quality and your school will be full. Good luck-wai2.gif

Thanks for the input sirchai.

Regarding taxes, I think that schools are tax exempt. My wife used to run the accounts department for Nakhon Ratchasima College.,

The brother in law runs private English tuition in Bangkok, the father in law has been in teaching for almost 40 years and is second from top in the school pecking order (just under director) and looks after the procuring of everything for the school which is a 3000+ student government school. So he a has huge relative connections, gets great discounts and of course gets looked after by lots of suppliers.. wink wink.

What they suggested to me was to open up an English language school only using western teachers (preferably British native), teaching the Oxford brand of the Queen's English.

The main thing that I am not sure about, is this...

Would the school need to be registered as a company or registered as a school?

What are the requirements regarding foreign workers and a foreigner owning a % of the business? Are they the same as company laws as you mentioned needing to have a certain % of Thai employees??

If we were forced to have Thai teachers, then that would certainly dilute the quality of what we would like to achieve. But Thai teachers could teach at the lower entry level... Then the western Teachers could take them to the next level. There would already be 3 Thais involved in the business anyway.

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You do not need Thai teachers. You do need Thai employees to get a business license I believe it is 7 Thai employees for every work permit. The problem a lot of schools have is that they can only hire 1-2 native speakers because they just cannot give work permits.

You need both a business license and MOE certification. So in short you will need both a large investment and a solid curriculum and course layout. Just choosing random books isn't really going to impress MOE.

The problem is that you know nothing about EFL so you will need to hire an academic director if you actually want quality. You may have a business sense but really do you know how to pick a good teacher from a bad one based on a resume' and interview? Just hiring a young English person isn't going to cut it in the long run. You will need to have someone be able to develop a curriculum and train your teachers or at the very least make sure that they all follow a methodology that your focus on. So the problem right there is that you will need to start off by paying someone else at least 40-50k just to run the academic aspect of the school.

Everything that your family knows will do you no good at all. Even their experience with education won't help because effectively teaching EFL is 100% different than most Thai style educators.

None of your family's connections or knowledge and skill sets will really help you much. A private language school is not a government organization and you will not be TAX FREE (wishful thinking). Of course they can pull students and do advertising for you and even get you contracts with the schools that they are affiliated with. But getting students and keeping them long term is a different story.

Having a good business plan and model is important but a school needs even more than that. Personally I hate working for business men that don't know anything about education. When you leave too much up to the teacher, you can open yourself up to serious trouble. Trusting that most teachers know what they are doing is a sure way to lose all of your students.

You will need to set it up just like any other business in Thailand with Thai owning 51% (if I remember right).

Typically when someone starts up an English language school, they already have a background in teaching and can actually teach EFL themselves. Starting small and doing most aspects of the business yourself saves a lot of money and then eventually expanding and hiring others.

If you invest enough and get lucky finding all the right staff, teachers and academic directors, and you can market to enough potential students, you will do well.

My initial advice would be to not do it. My second advice since you obviously are going to do it no matter what, would be to try and build relationships with Universities both locally and back in your home country (or whatever country most students would like to study abroad). If you get accredited and connected with a western university, you will definitely do well. There is a lot of money in getting students (high school and university age) to study abroad. In some high schools in the US you get 2-3k dollars for each student you sign up to study abroad.

Good luck it will be an uphill battle for at least 2-3 years, but eventually if you have enough money to keep the school going, you will eventually do well.

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You do not need Thai teachers. You do need Thai employees to get a business license I believe it is 7 Thai employees for every work permit. The problem a lot of schools have is that they can only hire 1-2 native speakers because they just cannot give work permits.

You need both a business license and MOE certification. So in short you will need both a large investment and a solid curriculum and course layout. Just choosing random books isn't really going to impress MOE.

The problem is that you know nothing about EFL so you will need to hire an academic director if you actually want quality. You may have a business sense but really do you know how to pick a good teacher from a bad one based on a resume' and interview? Just hiring a young English person isn't going to cut it in the long run. You will need to have someone be able to develop a curriculum and train your teachers or at the very least make sure that they all follow a methodology that your focus on. So the problem right there is that you will need to start off by paying someone else at least 40-50k just to run the academic aspect of the school.

Everything that your family knows will do you no good at all. Even their experience with education won't help because effectively teaching EFL is 100% different than most Thai style educators.

None of your family's connections or knowledge and skill sets will really help you much. A private language school is not a government organization and you will not be TAX FREE (wishful thinking). Of course they can pull students and do advertising for you and even get you contracts with the schools that they are affiliated with. But getting students and keeping them long term is a different story.

Having a good business plan and model is important but a school needs even more than that. Personally I hate working for business men that don't know anything about education. When you leave too much up to the teacher, you can open yourself up to serious trouble. Trusting that most teachers know what they are doing is a sure way to lose all of your students.

You will need to set it up just like any other business in Thailand with Thai owning 51% (if I remember right).

Typically when someone starts up an English language school, they already have a background in teaching and can actually teach EFL themselves. Starting small and doing most aspects of the business yourself saves a lot of money and then eventually expanding and hiring others.

If you invest enough and get lucky finding all the right staff, teachers and academic directors, and you can market to enough potential students, you will do well.

My initial advice would be to not do it. My second advice since you obviously are going to do it no matter what, would be to try and build relationships with Universities both locally and back in your home country (or whatever country most students would like to study abroad). If you get accredited and connected with a western university, you will definitely do well. There is a lot of money in getting students (high school and university age) to study abroad. In some high schools in the US you get 2-3k dollars for each student you sign up to study abroad.

Good luck it will be an uphill battle for at least 2-3 years, but eventually if you have enough money to keep the school going, you will eventually do well.

Fantastic post... Thank you so much for taking the time to provide a detailed insight full of good advice..

I wouldn't however agree that I am determined to do it whatever. Like I said in the original post. If the numbers don't stack up... It gets filed in the 'bad idea' cabinet. No matter how much pressure the family exerts on me. I agreed to give it a fair shot and do a viability study and costings exercise before I take anything to the next level. That includes obstacles, if there are many and even if they can all be overcome. I would still reject the idea on the basis that traditionally a project with many problems to overcome is usually going to problematic on an ongoing basis, and I am too old to start fighting a constant uphill battle.

But anyway.. I agree that the family can't help too much with regards to EFL because the father in law doesn't teach English as any of his subjects. But he is well connected both inside and outside school on the basis that he has probably educated half the population of the town... trust me, I hate being with him in the Mall... it can take an hour to get out the amount of times we get stopped.

I have just got back from a friend of mine after running this past him for the first time. He is an English teacher in one of the big schools here. He taught English in the UK and about 12 years here. In total has almost 27 years teaching under his belt. He is a graduate of Oxford Uni and was the first person outside the family I have discussed this with. Very enlightening couple of hours it was. He is very much interested in getting involved. Great to have a brain-storming session with a real pro on the system. He thinks the idea is great (I will elaborate more soon). He also threw some good ideas into the mix. He also knows another very good quality teacher in town, British fully trained teacher. So we would have the capacity to not only produce a very good standard of course, but we would have an asset in filtering out the BS teachers.

One thing we discussed was premises and start up costs, and he happened to repeat something that the father in law had suggested, and that was to start out with evening classes at FIL's school. I actually know the director quite well, he was master of ceremonies at our wedding. Classrooms would be supplied and there is already a 3000+ potential customer base to tap into. If rather than pay rent, we put the school on a cut of fees, on a contract/partnership basis. Then we would be able to have the school support our applications for work permits. Also the school would not only get income and we would possibly save a lot of money and headaches on start-up costs, but also the school would look good having top quality extra curricular English tuition available on site. Obviously this all still needs to be agreed to make sure it is all possible. But on paper it looks good.

As a businessman. It would be my objective to get the first one totally airtight and then there is the possibility to replicate the model... Who knows how far it can go... But one thing is for sure and this has been echoed all over Korat.. The place lacks proper full on top quality English courses. My wife also mentioned that a good selling point is to offer tuition up to a student's desired IELTS band, because that is going to be a requirement for studying overseas in an English speaking country.

I love your idea on providing hand selected students to supply to overseas universities. That is something I did not even know. Definitely something we can focus on as an extra lucrative income stream.

Anyway.. so far all seems good and straight on paper. There will be problems no doubt. But I think nothing too big a challenge. Let's hope the father in law can come back tomorrow with some good news after having a chat with the director about a possible strategic partnership. I am happy to invest a million or two in a couple of good salaries. I will pay well for the best teachers. That is the most important thing to me, this has to be top notch.

Edited by klubex99
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You do not need Thai teachers. You do need Thai employees to get a business license I believe it is 7 Thai employees for every work permit. The problem a lot of schools have is that they can only hire 1-2 native speakers because they just cannot give work permits.

You need both a business license and MOE certification. So in short you will need both a large investment and a solid curriculum and course layout. Just choosing random books isn't really going to impress MOE.

The problem is that you know nothing about EFL so you will need to hire an academic director if you actually want quality. You may have a business sense but really do you know how to pick a good teacher from a bad one based on a resume' and interview? Just hiring a young English person isn't going to cut it in the long run. You will need to have someone be able to develop a curriculum and train your teachers or at the very least make sure that they all follow a methodology that your focus on. So the problem right there is that you will need to start off by paying someone else at least 40-50k just to run the academic aspect of the school.

Everything that your family knows will do you no good at all. Even their experience with education won't help because effectively teaching EFL is 100% different than most Thai style educators.

None of your family's connections or knowledge and skill sets will really help you much. A private language school is not a government organization and you will not be TAX FREE (wishful thinking). Of course they can pull students and do advertising for you and even get you contracts with the schools that they are affiliated with. But getting students and keeping them long term is a different story.

Having a good business plan and model is important but a school needs even more than that. Personally I hate working for business men that don't know anything about education. When you leave too much up to the teacher, you can open yourself up to serious trouble. Trusting that most teachers know what they are doing is a sure way to lose all of your students.

You will need to set it up just like any other business in Thailand with Thai owning 51% (if I remember right).

Typically when someone starts up an English language school, they already have a background in teaching and can actually teach EFL themselves. Starting small and doing most aspects of the business yourself saves a lot of money and then eventually expanding and hiring others.

If you invest enough and get lucky finding all the right staff, teachers and academic directors, and you can market to enough potential students, you will do well.

My initial advice would be to not do it. My second advice since you obviously are going to do it no matter what, would be to try and build relationships with Universities both locally and back in your home country (or whatever country most students would like to study abroad). If you get accredited and connected with a western university, you will definitely do well. There is a lot of money in getting students (high school and university age) to study abroad. In some high schools in the US you get 2-3k dollars for each student you sign up to study abroad.

Good luck it will be an uphill battle for at least 2-3 years, but eventually if you have enough money to keep the school going, you will eventually do well.

That's incorrect. Language schools are classified as informal schools (category 15/2). The school does not pay tax on any subjects that have that curriculum attached to their school license.

For example, if a school has curriculum for English and Thai study attached to their license and run these courses, they won't pay tax on that income. If they run Spanish classes but don't have that curriculum attached to their license, they will pay tax on the income. Study abroad programs cannot be attached to school licenses and income is taxable.

The school can employ teachers as 'consultants' through its company (1 work permit for every 4 - I think - Thai staff). Alternatively, once it has a school license, it can employ as many foreign teachers as it wants so long as they are teaching subjects which have curriculum attached to the school license.

It's easy to register a school with the MoE. However, to obtain a school license there are many requirements: staff, building, operating company's audited accounts, facilities, MoE inspections, curriculum etc. In addition, it will take 1-2 years before the license comes through. Each curriculum is examined by a panel from the MoE before it's approved.

Edited by Loaded
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You might want to consider this competitive advantage in your business plan:

- to develop English speakers, with good grammar skills vs. grammar experts with little (or no) speaking skills.

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You might want to consider this competitive advantage in your business plan:

- to develop English speakers, with good grammar skills vs. grammar experts with little (or no) speaking skills.

There will be students that want both. Some students need to pass paper exams and some want to use the language to communicate.

Offer courses that you know your customers want and not what you feel they should study.

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Loaded you are probably right about the tax. I just know what I was told when I was looking into doing the same thing. However that was over 10 years ago and I probably didn't remember it right. I do know that dealing with taxes and all of the paperwork is a hassle and you will need to trust someone to do it for you.

I also assume that he will take a salary and not just keep what ever money is made every month (that is embezzlement since it is a company). A person is not a company and you cannot just keep profits for yourself in a school like this, so the money will be taxable in that sense.

The only problem that I see with linking to the school and using them to overcome all the paperwork and legalities, is that you would be more of a tutoring center at the school. Since they will own all of the licenses at some point if they feel that you are taking too much of the profits and get greedy, they can do what CMU Language Institute did. They canceled all of the classes, got rid of the foreign managers taking a huge cut of the profits, then a few months later re-opened everything hiring a few part time teachers and took all the profits for themselves. Not saying that they would do that, many places are honest, but there is the possibility.

The problem with marketing classes to a certain score lvl is that in a sense you are guaranteeing students will achieve that score if they take those classes. You could possibly open yourself of to some problems. Also less than 1% of students will actually study abroad so marketing classes just for them won't be your main money maker.

Check out ajarn forums, there have been a few people posting a few years back doing the same thing out in Korat. You also might want to contact Mcwalen. Though I think he is kind of the "Used Car" salesman of education, he does run profitable businesses. He has offered a few group business consultation seminars in the past.

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You might want to consider this competitive advantage in your business plan:

- to develop English speakers, with good grammar skills vs. grammar experts with little (or no) speaking skills.

There will be students that want both. Some students need to pass paper exams and some want to use the language to communicate.

Offer courses that you know your customers want and not what you feel they should study.

Identifying competitive advantages in a business plan is not the same as writing a syllabus.

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Zeichen

Yes you are correct about the embezzlement and the tax on salaries.

The company would be formed between myself and my wife and her father. We already agreed that if I go ahead, the wife and FIL will hold 51% between them and I will hold 49%. We would all take salaries and that is taxable. So long as the surplus finances are reinvested, they would remain tax free. That is what i am thinking is the case. My wife is the expert in accounting, so she knows all the ins and outs.

I would doubt very much that the school would shaft us because we are well in with the school director and he is a personal friend of FIL. But obviously I have expansion in mind, and so I could never vouch for any of the other schools we may go into. But a good lawyer and a solid contract ought to keep it all safe. The idea is to put in place a sort of independent academy that focuses on a much higher standard than any of these schools are able to achieve. They may try to muscle in, but the quality would almost certainly take a tumble and the students would probably melt away. That doesn't mean to say, they wouldn't have a go... We know all about Thainess ;) My main aim would be to make the schools feel very happy that we are there.

As for the curriculum and the teaching syllabus, I will leave that up to my friend.... That's his specialty.

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Seems like you will spend more time and money, thinking about this idea, than actually doing it !!

Unless you want to be a direct competitor for someone like Mr Walen, I don't see how you will make money with a small scale school. Unless, you are teaching yourself or your immediate family is capable of teaching.

My wife runs English language classes from our place. We use our coffee shop premises as a classroom. She is not registered, she doesn't have a teaching license and she does not pay taxes. I do not for one second condone this approach, however, with over 60 students a month, she earns around 35-40k. If everything was done above board, she would be effectively working for free.

As someone mentioned above, the focus of her classes is conversation, although she does work around the kids curriculum and also helps them with any upcoming exam study/problems they might have. We have kids turn up 2hrs before their classes at times, just because they love studying with her. Over the summer holidays, she was running summer school and had back to back classes all day, everyday. (she did pull in about 60k those months). My point being, the kids love to study in an environment that is not what they experience at school everyday. In 8 months, I have seen such an improvement in many of the 'slow' learners, just because they are happy to study.

So your choices as I see them are, push figures around, debate laws, consider target markets, plan hiring options etc

Or just open a school and start teaching some kids that want to learn.

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Sorry I did not read all the responses so I hope this is not repetitive.

There are several kinds of schools that you can open in Thailand. If you are looking to open up strictly an English tutorial school then you would be looking at a School that they consider nontraditional education. These schools used to be called 15/1 schools although I think they may have changed the name. These kinds of schools consist consist of everything from English schools to driving schools to hairdresser schools. I'm going to assume this is the kind of school if you want to open.

You're going to need to have a headteacher who is Thai and has a degree in English or English teaching.

You can be the licensee as long as you are also Thai, although now they have certain restrictions like I think you have to have a university degree and have to be over a certain age. As is often true in Thailand, these rules seem to change and be enforced inconsistently.

When you apply for the license is really not a very difficult or complicated process. You will need to have a curriculum. Sometimes the Ministry of education office will offer you one that's already been approved.

The next step is having your building inspected to make sure that it's safe to run the school. You need to have the engineering drawings so if it's an older building you might need to hire an engineer come in and create some new ones.

Here in Rayong, probably about two thirds of these kinds of private nontraditional schools are not even registered.

Edited by brucetefl
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You're going to need to have a headteacher who is Thai and has a degree in English or English teaching.

You can be the licensee as long as you are also tie, although now they have certain restrictions like I think you have to have a university degree and have to be over a certain age. As is often true in Thailand, these rules seem to change and be enforced inconsistently.

I think you need someone involved, head teacher or management, who is qualified to master's level. The curriculum also needs to be approved.

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Tax

Accountants and auditors add up numbers. If you have someone within the business that is familiar with tax laws and codes, you can tell the accountant what numbers to add up. It sounds as though your wife can help you there. Don't trust your accountant to apply tax laws and codes that will benefit your business best. They don't care normally. This can save you a lot of money.

Not obtaining a school license

Registration with the MoE and obtaining a school license is a requirement for all non-formal schools. However, as mentioned by Bruce, some non-formal schools (including a few language schools and TEFL courses) don't bother with this. They are breaking education codes. However, the MoE has very little power to enforce education codes.

However because these schools aren't licensed, they are probably breaking tax codes and the revenue department is a particularly nasty adversary. In addition, if the school (language or TEFL for example) employs foreigners, they won't be able to obtain work permits and non-imm B visas through the school license. Hence, they will be working illegally and it's only a matter of time before they pop up on the radar of Immigration and Labor. When that happens, the foreigner is in the proverbial.

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For non formal education all your head teacher needs is a relevant degree.

All schools in Thailand are tax free. No VAT and no income tax. You just have to pay the social security tax on your employees, thats it.

You're going to need to have a headteacher who is Thai and has a degree in English or English teaching.

You can be the licensee as long as you are also tie, although now they have certain restrictions like I think you have to have a university degree and have to be over a certain age. As is often true in Thailand, these rules seem to change and be enforced inconsistently.

I think you need someone involved, head teacher or management, who is qualified to master's level. The curriculum also needs to be approved.

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For non formal education all your head teacher needs is a relevant degree.

All schools in Thailand are tax free. No VAT and no income tax. You just have to pay the social security tax on your employees, thats it.

You're going to need to have a headteacher who is Thai and has a degree in English or English teaching.

You can be the licensee as long as you are also tie, although now they have certain restrictions like I think you have to have a university degree and have to be over a certain age. As is often true in Thailand, these rules seem to change and be enforced inconsistently.

I think you need someone involved, head teacher or management, who is qualified to master's level. The curriculum also needs to be approved.

Read the previous posts. However to paraphrase: certain courses can be tax free if they are licensed by the MoE only if that course has a curriculum attached to its school license.

To obtain a school license you need more than a head teacher (read previous posts).

No license, then they are not a school. We also had this discussion before on another thread a few months ago Bruce.

Edited by Loaded
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Well I think we agree, we just have a question about defining terms.

A "school" that is not registered is... not a school. It must pay taxes and VAT like a normal company.

A school can only run classes according to its curriculum. Of course thats not very well enforced. Once you are set up as a school they pretty much just leave you alone. Of course if an English school started running auto body repair classes it would raise some eyebrows. They would probably strongly suggest you submit the curriculum and get a head teacher to teach the new subject.

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This is all great input guys, thanks so much for the help you are giving us here.

I am waiting for the wife to get back from her parent's house with feedback from FIL's school director on the issue. I would imagine that these are the people who will know exactly how to set up conditions to keep MoE and immigration. The school does directly hire farang teachers from time to time. I know they have a problem with not being able to keep hold of them for long which disrupts their English classes.

There could equally be some bad news coming, because the school is a government school, and that could make things iffy and there could be limits on what they can offer us. Could end up in a bureaucratic quagmire.

The thing that interests me most is how much advantage we can take from being in a fully licensed school, can they help at work permit level and so on. Basically, establishing ourselves in a place that obviously has all the licenses, buildings and infrastructure up to code and a multitude of Thai employees to support visa applications. So far I am working mainly off assumptions that this course of action can help us jump over several hurdles at once.

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I do think that if you work with your FIL's school, they will eventually ask what you are bringing to the table. You are not teaching, you are not able to develop a curriculum or even assess student's ability and needs. I guess you would be like a recruiter finding teachers to handle the classes but overall in that scenario you bring nothing to the table and take a large cut of the salary.

If you started your own school, rented/ built a nice atmosphere, recruited teachers, and ran the business aspects and of course invested the millions of baht it would take to start up a real Language school, then yes you would be valuable.

Personally, I would suggest teaching for 3-5 years full time. Then you would have built some definite teaching skills and have more to offer than just money. Advancing your knowledge by taking the CELTA (1 month course) and then the DELTA (1 year diploma) you would definitely be above average in the skill sets needed for such a venture.

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It sounds like this is a family venture. Hopefully there are no issues about being forced out. For a private English school, ultimately the licensee is the owner. The owner must be a Thai. But if you are worried about protecting yourself, a non-Thai can own many things in the school like the name, the logo, the curriculum.

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I say do it. Thailand needs schools. It is important to be interested in education. I have seen many fail over the years as they were really just interested in a quick buck. I have been running schools for 12 years in Thailand and if done correctly and with passion it can be a very good business. I will be setting up two new schools in Hua Hin and Cha Am as the market is huge. I think you could do very well in Korat. Wish you all the best.

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  • 6 months later...

I am also interested in starting a Tutoring Service here in Thailand. I have several years of ESL Experience in Indonesia; Taiwan and Thailand; I also have many years experience starting and running my own businesses in New York City and Thailand - The future looks good for well run language services. I will not go into extensive details about ES, BP or BS :-) because building a business is all about hard work on a daily basis.- As a footnote I will say I currently have a Company in Thailand under the Amity Agreement. I am not sure if that company can be useful in a scenario such as this.

The questions I have are entirely about government regulations and 'ownership'. Unless I am mistaken to obtain a School license the director needs to have a Master's Degree in Education; however I am not sure that person needs to be a citizen of Thailand?

Therefore my primary questions are as follows

- What is the precise company makeup; viz., Share percentages?; Foreign ownership allowed?

- What degree of 'control' does the director have in such a company, i.e., Can they just be a hired head?

- What are the requirements for capital (registered amount? Proofs?)

- What are the primary license(s) needed?

- Curriculum; can one be purchased preapproved from the government itself? Is this just a rubber stamp process? (later we develop our own in relation to obvious technical and academic advances)?

- Tax situation. I understand a teaching organization is not taxed if it makes money on any curriculum attached to their school license; so is it advisable to attach several curriculum to the initial license? and if so what extra difficulty would this add to the process?

Thank anyone who replies for their patience with my groping for answers in what is certainly a difficult yet intriguing business area.

E

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I am also researching the establishment of a language centre to teach English to adults in my locality.

From reading the above, is my interpretation of the regulations correct?

I can open a registered business which teaches English from some premises, employs NES teachers and Thai employees in the ratio 1:4. That business only becomes an 'informal school' when the MOE issues a school licence, with tax-free profits for courses with an approved curriculum, need for a Thai Director with MA Education etc.

That business is not an 'informal school' until it obtains the MOE licence. But it can legally operate prior to that point as a registered business, paying tax/VAT etc, just like any other business, without the need for an approved curriculum, and without the need for a Thai Director with MA Education.

In other words, when one establishes a language centre, it always starts off as a business, and then becomes an 'informal school' after the MOE issue the school. licence further down the line.

Is one obliged to seek an MOE licence? Or can one simply operate as a business throughout the life of the language centre, (without the tax advantages of being a licenced school)?

Simon

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I am also researching the establishment of a language centre to teach English to adults in my locality.

From reading the above, is my interpretation of the regulations correct?

I can open a registered business which teaches English from some premises, employs NES teachers and Thai employees in the ratio 1:4. That business only becomes an 'informal school' when the MOE issues a school licence, with tax-free profits for courses with an approved curriculum, need for a Thai Director with MA Education etc.

That business is not an 'informal school' until it obtains the MOE licence. But it can legally operate prior to that point as a registered business, paying tax/VAT etc, just like any other business, without the need for an approved curriculum, and without the need for a Thai Director with MA Education.

In other words, when one establishes a language centre, it always starts off as a business, and then becomes an 'informal school' after the MOE issue the school. licence further down the line.

Is one obliged to seek an MOE licence? Or can one simply operate as a business throughout the life of the language centre, (without the tax advantages of being a licenced school)?

Simon

A very nice, succinct post.

Edited by nellyp
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A very nice, succinct post.

Thank-you, but is my post 'correct' in my understanding of the regulations?

I have no idea, but I would also like to know if your reasoning is correct.Hopefully soebody else will be able to tell us.

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I'd also be very interested in any information :)

Although I'm not planning on starting a language school / tutoring business for another 2 years, but if I know the requirements early my gf and I can work towards them (We're both thinking about doing education/teaching related qualifications over the next few years before we start our own tutoring school).

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

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You might want to consider this competitive advantage in your business plan:

- to develop English speakers, with good grammar skills vs. grammar experts with little (or no) speaking skills.

There will be students that want both. Some students need to pass paper exams and some want to use the language to communicate.

Offer courses that you know your customers want and not what you feel they should study.

Which is like feeding bananas to a crocodile.-w00t.gif

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