Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Education Visa. I don't do a ton of videos on this topic and I also don't wish to be viewed as just purely the guy that sort of runs down the ED Visa, that is not really my purpose. My purpose in making these videos oftentimes where I caution people about the ED Visa is it has been the target of intense scrutiny in the past to the point of crackdowns and even, not only just crackdowns, but roundups where they went around the schools. I remember doing the videos some years back where they actually went around the schools and were finding people and said "You are clearly not a student, we are deporting you." So again, I don't make these videos to just sort of lambast the ED Visas, they can be useful and for those who have a legitimate reason to be in Thailand to study, the ED Visa is a very good option but unfortunately, especially more in the past, not so much now although it does seem to be kind of a phenomenon which is someone creeping back, there's a lot of ED Visas out there that appear to be being issued for fraudulent reasons, let's put it that way.  

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thai Immigration Policy: shape of things to come. Quoting directly: "Senior Thai Police in recent months have predicted that the one-year visas and extensions of stay - Retirement, Marriage and Study - need a tightening up of the rules. Deputy National Police Chief Surachate Hakparn (Big Joke) has pointed to alleged abuses such as applicants borrowing money from agents or language schools deliberately ignoring non-attendance in classes." In point of fact, when I mentioned roundups that were done in the past, that was Big Joke who was leading that charge when he was the Head of Thai immigration, so that's something to keep in mind. 

But more to the point, yeah non-attendance at classes can be a major problem if you are looking to maintain your Thai ED Visa and we have actually seen scenarios and witnessed, as well as heard anecdotally, scenarios where Thai Immigration Police will show up in a different location and say, "Well where are all your students? You say you have got 25 students at this school, we are showing up at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday when you say ostensibly you are having a class and we get in here and there are three people here and you say you have 25!" We have seen that happen in the past. So again, non-attendance of classes associated with Thai Education Visas can be very problematic.

Those who are looking to maintain status in Thailand in the long term and are looking for a viable way of doing that, there are more options than simply the ED Visa and in many cases, they provide much more peace of mind.