Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing ED Visas or Education Visas here in Thailand. For those who are unaware, yeah it is possible, what we would call sort of a Student Visa back in the United States, category F1 Student Visa, there is sort of a similar if you will counterpart to that type of Visa in Thailand called the ED Visa, or Education Visa. As I have discussed at length in many other videos, ED Visas kind of, depending on the sort of context of the ED Visa, it may be very, very reputable but they have been sort of known to be somewhat "shady" over the years because a number of folks use Education in Thailand is simply a pretext or more precise a term might be pretense, as a pretense to get an ED Visa, to get an Education Visa, i.e. they are not really doing what they say they are doing. 

Which brings me to the reason I thought of making this video was a quote from a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thai Government denies dangers from visa-free policy. Quoting directly: "Worries had been raised formally by Senate members noting recent scandals involving Chinese nationals ignoring Work Permit regulations or enrolling expensively at Thai language schools simply to extend their stay without any intention of learning." Yeah that's a very fair point. We've seen a number of incidents of this, I should say. I remember when "Big Joke" was heading Thai Immigration, it seemed like not a week went by there within one year where there wasn't some kind of crackdown where they were rolling up the paddy wagon if you will, the Immigration detention bus, the vans or whatever; actually with the Thai Police they have like these trucks that they put like a topper on that is basically a cage in the back, it is like a "song taew" but it's enclosed and then they put people in there and drive them off to the jail or the detention centre, wherever. But long story short, it didn't seem like a week went by that there wasn't some crackdown at these education facilities, these schools, these language facilities oftentimes. 

Again Thai Senators seem to be rather concerned about this and when policy makers show their concern, generally speaking regulators listen. What does this mean? I don't know, but I would not count out the possibility that down the road we could see more scrutiny associated with the ED Visa to say the least. Again I can remember when "Big Joke" was running crackdowns and arresting people at Language Institutes and things because they were ostensibly, or at least the reason given was that they were not engaging in any language school, they were just using the visas to maintain their status and they weren't really doing what they said they were doing, essentially citing that they were fraudulently obtaining the Visas. 

Could this happen again? It remains to be seen but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.