Teachers in debt need help

They said previous debtrelief schemes charged too much interest that forced them into even more debt, which has risen by Bt40 billion in the past eight years.

They disagreed with suggestions that teachers take on part-time jobs to repay their debts, as this would tarnish their professional integrity and affect their students. They called for pay rises and promotion criteria to be "more appropriate" to their needs.

At a workshop yesterday, 400 ministry officials, teachers and educational personnel aired their opinions about a scheme to tackle teachers' debts by combining them into a single entity and setting up a mutual fund.

The fund would be structured to allow teachers to repay debts at a low interest rate while, at the same time, teachers would be encouraged to take part-time jobs to earn extra money to prevent another buildup of debts.

Sanong Thahom, from the Teachers Federation of Thailand, said previous schemes took advantage of teachers, charging them high interest rates and pushing them even deeper into debt.

He called for a more favourable scheme that charged interest below 5 per cent, so teachers could use some part of their salary to repay debts without having to borrow more from elsewhere in order to live.

In addition, he said, teachers' debts also built up because they were burdened with additional costs due to insufficient government funding to pay for student trips, participation in competitions or additional teaching materials.

Amnat Sunthorntham, from the Teachers' Life Development Network, said the first refinancing scheme - the Teachers' Life Development Project - had seen teachers' total debts rise to nearly Bt132 billion. Last year, however, it was found that this had soared to Bt173.7 billion.

He said teachers had more outgoings than income and thus had to borrow to survive.

Pravit Waicharoen, from the Network for Southern Teachers' Life Quality Development, said the teachers' refinancing scheme was charging interest that was not much different from the minimum lending rate of 7.25 per cent levied by banks.

He said some teachers earning Bt35,000 per month only had Bt3,000 left to live on, because most the money was deducted to repay their debts.

He urged the government to introduce a new scheme that left teachers with at least 40 per cent of their salaries to live on and suggested the government find low-risk businesses for them to invest in rather than having them take on parttime jobs.