Municipal Schools Hiring Foreign Teachers

PHUKET TOWN: In a first for Thailand, the Phuket Municipality is to enter into a contract with a private company to improve the quality of English among primary students at municipal schools. ELT Phuket will be employed to raise the standard of English among the municipality’s teachers, according to Somjai Suwansupana, a Phuket municipal counselor. “We want to improve the education system but we do not have enough personnel. So we have decided to work with ELT Phuket to develop the quality of English of our Thai teaching staff,” Somjai told the Gazette earlier this week. The municipality has employed seven foreign teachers for English-language education since November, and Somjai said there had been a marked improvement in the language among the students. “They enjoy learning English under this system and are now more confident when they speak it.” Somjai said that a good grounding in English was particularly important for students here because of the island’s tourism industry. The contract with ELT runs for three years.