JonBenet case puts spotlight on foreign teachers

John Mark Karr

BANGKOK - Thailand plans to draw up new rules for hiring foreign teachers after the arrest of an American teacher suspected of murdering a child beauty queen raised questions about recruiting procedures, officials said yesterday.

John Mark Karr, arrested in Bangkok last week in connection with the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey, had worked briefly at two schools in Thailand and had just been hired for a new job teaching 7- and 8-year-olds.

The arrest prompted Thailand's education authorities to examine vetting procedures for the thousands of teachers seeking work in Bangkok, where a booming sex industry draws thousands of foreign men.

"We want to look more clearly at the process of recruitment," said Jakrapob Penkair, a Government spokesman with responsibility for educational affairs.

"At the moment there is no exchange of data between schools. We would like schools employing foreign teachers to be networked so information about individuals can be shared on a database."

The Nation newspaper said in an editorial yesterday that measures to stamp out the child sex trade in Bangkok could be pushing sex offenders off the streets and into the classroom.

"Some paedophiles, fully aware that commercial sex involving minors has become scarier and riskier here, now come to Thailand to live and work under the guise of legitimate professions like English teaching," it said.

"Such jobs are plentiful and allow paedophiles access to impressionable youths."

Kumaree Chinawat, vice president of the International Schools Association of Thailand (ISAT), said schools would work with the Government to pursue police checks on teaching candidates in their home countries.

"We already have a rigorous system in place, but we would like to make it even more thorough by doing criminal record checks on candidates even before they come to Thailand," she said.

ISAT's 70 or so schools already authenticate teacher qualifications and run checks with former employers.

But there are no common vetting procedures for the scores of private Thai schools which run foreign-language programmes and employ teachers from overseas. A posting on a website for expatriate teachers suggests just how easy it is to find work.

"Often little or no experience is required to get a job in these schools - if you have a degree, a TEFL certificate of some sort and an easy-going nature then you'll do OK," reads the posting on ajarn.com, referring to teaching English as a foreign language.

Karr taught in two schools, the Bangkok Christian College and St Joseph's Convent School. He was dismissed from both after two weeks because of concerns about his strictness.

Karr, 41, was deported to the United States on Sunday after telling reporters in Bangkok he was with 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey when she died, but that her death was an accident.

"People like him are dangerous. We have criminals from all over the world running away from their home countries to look for teaching jobs in Thailand," said Immigration Police chief Lieutenant-General Suwat Tumroungsiskul.

Such concerns led an international nursery and primary school in neighbouring Cambodia to employ only women teachers.

"We would wonder if the men had an ulterior motive," said British teacher Kate Cropley, who worked at the Phnom Penh school from 2003 to 2004. "If they were middle-aged and single we would think: Why have you come to Cambodia?"

- REUTERS