Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Education Visas. As we have discussed in other videos on this channel regarding Education Visas, this is a pretty discreet category of visa in my opinion of people using it for the right reasons. Like at the end of the day, yes there is an Education Visa in Thailand for people who want to attend university or school or something. However there are a lot of operations out there which issue Education Visa documentation basically as a pretext or really as a pretense oftentimes and the underlying reason for the Visa isn't there, so in essence you get issues associated with Immigration fraud. This seems to have come to the attention of relevant Thai Authorities in the Immigration Division all the way to the top of the overall police apparatus here in Thailand now as well. 

Again I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the print edition of the Bangkok Post, but we are going to go ahead and throw it up from the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Big Joke faces down critics. I am going to quote an excerpt here. I really urge folks who are interested in this topic, read this article in detail, a lot of insight there. Quoting directly: "Police General Surachate," (that is Surachate Hakparn, Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn, the Deputy National Police Chief) "Police General Surachate said the Chinese criminals enter Thailand using Student Visas while some apply for Volunteer Visas to work for foundations in the country. For Visa extensions, they do not report in person, but pay an agent to handle the matter. They offer some Immigration Officers money under the table to facilitate the procedures or turn a blind eye, he said." Quoting further: "Many submitted documents issued by language schools or volunteer foundations as a ploy to extend their visa, he said."

So again, you need to understand, this is being taken very seriously by the very highest levels of Thai Law enforcement. Simply doing things that 10 years ago, "Ahh, you just go down and fill out some paperwork with this school and then they give you some paperwork and now you got yourself an Education Visa", that is not how things are working these days and honestly if that is ostensibly how it looks, be leery because Immigration Authorities are serious about Immigration Law these days. And their paradigm as we discussed in other videos has moved away from kind of viewing it as an administrative exercise - just bring in the right paperwork, we will stamp the documents - to a law enforcement exercise and folks who are using schools, language schools, whatever, pretensively, are going to be viewed by Thai Immigration with a great deal of not only skepticism but scrutiny that could lead to real problems including being detained, being deported and possibly being blacklisted. 

So again, the thing to take away from this video, one, if you are looking to get an Education Visa and you are really, seriously coming over to Thailand to study, it is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional there, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed but also understand, it is not a good idea anymore to look at this as simply an exercise "Ahh, just do some paperwork and the Thai Immigration Officers will give you what you want!" That's not really how they are thinking about things these days. This is a law enforcement way of thinking about things and that is an entirely different thing to what we dealt with some years ago.