Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggest, we are discussing Thai Education Visas. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the title of the article is: Summary of Thai Visas available: January 2024. Student Visas. Quoting directly: "The former practice of enrolling as a student of Thai and then attending classes rarely or never is now frowned on. There have been a number of scandals reported involving heads of language schools and deviant Immigration Officers. It is unwise to seek Student Visas on a non-sincere basis. Those interested in becoming a serious student should contact a Language School of their choice to ascertain costs and requirements. Many student and volunteer visas issued during the COVID pandemic were shown to be fraudulent." 

Yeah, as we have discussed in a number of prior videos, Volunteer Visas, let's set these aside for a moment, Volunteer Visas yeah you have really got to be careful with these. They have added a whole lot of new requirements associated with a real Volunteer Visa now wherein basically you have to get the Government nod before a Volunteer Visa will even be issued. So Volunteer Visas as a practical matter are effectively are a dead letter in virtually all cases were once getting volunteer visas, all of those have dried up; that's not going to be possible anymore.

Meanwhile Education Visas, yeah look I have said it before and I will say it again, you need to be really careful with these because even with reputable schools, Immigration Offices, especially Immigration Offices if you move provinces and you are in another place and they are not familiar with what you were doing in the prior province, you may see yourself having real problems getting any kind of further visa service out of the Immigration Department because they have a problem with just the mere fact that you have an Education Visa. 

So again, the thing I would take away from this video is don't look at Education Visas as some kind of quick fix, easy out, some way of circumventing the Immigration system. If anything I would make a strong argument that Education Visas cause more problems especially in the long-term for foreigners here in the Kingdom in terms of trying to maintain ongoing long-term status. So again, as I have said in other videos, university attendance, things of this nature, Education Visas may be very useful but the former practice of using an Education Visa to effectively live in Thailand and sort of a circumvent the spirit of the rules associated with Thai Immigration and the Education Visa itself, is not an effective means of maintaining long-term status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.