The Education Ministry yesterday offered to compile a list of foreigners suspected of committing crimes against children.

Khunying Kasama Varawarn na Ayutthaya, the ministry's permanent secretary, said it was a measure to help schools screen foreign applicants.

She was speaking after a meeting with representatives of relevant authorities, international schools, bilingual schools and English language schools.

The meeting was held in the wake of last week's arrest of John Mark Karr, a suspect in the 1996 murder of an American child beauty queen.

Karr managed to find teaching jobs in Bangkok before he was arrested here last Wednesday.

"We will seek information on suspected child abusers from various authorities overseas," Kasama said yesterday. She added that she had contacted the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) for information.

She said relevant parties would go into more details about a plan to develop a database of foreign teachers in Thailand next month.

Kasama, however, assured parents that her ministry and schools had carefully recruited foreign teachers by conducting checks into their qualifications and any criminal record.

"But if you see any suspicious teacher, please alert us through hotline number 1579," she said.

According to Kasama, her ministry has conducted qualification checks on 7,000 foreign applicants for teaching jobs during the past year. Of them, only 45 have submitted fake certificates and none had any criminal record.

"But from now on, we will tighten the screening even more," Kasama said.

International Schools Association of Thailand's vice president Kumari Shinawatra said her association's members had always made careful background checks before recruiting any teacher.

"We have checked whether their certificates are genuine and checked their history with their former employers and with the police," she said.

However, an informed source said only leading international schools had acceptable standards in recruiting foreign teachers, while smaller institutes or language schools were often so desperate to acquire foreign teachers they didn't bother with any detailed checking.