Job Discussion Forums

[canuckophile]

I have actually heard people complain about requirements in some countries for a Criminal Record Check before anyone can be hired as a teacher. (In the last couple of years, South Korea has started to require a Criminal Record Check - but see below how useful it is.)

Look at this link... even with a conviction for child porn, the man who is to be charged with 7 year old JonBenet Ramsey's murder in 1996 was able to enter Thailand and look for a job.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14379566/page/2/

Triple YUCK - ESL teachers should be REQUIRED to have Criminal Record Checks - it's scary to think how many pedophiles are teaching. (At my public school system last year in South Korea, some dude - who presumably had "passed" his US Criminal Record Check - got caught fooling with the female students at his high school. So what did the silly school do? Just tossed him out of SK - no criminal charges - so HE is probably teaching someplace else in Asia.)

[Bayden]

If China carried out criminal background checks the laws of supply and demand would see to it that teachers salaries went up that's for sure.

[Stephen Jones]

How do you do a criminal record check on teachers who have been living in half-a-dozen countries?

In the Uk where there has been mass hysteria over this for years the time they insisted on nobody even starting in the classroom until he had been cleared, schools had to cancel classes and send the kids to roam the streets because the checks took too long.

[saint57]

The prestige factor of the TESL industry continues to soar.

[ls650]

This is something that might sound like a good idea on the surface, but is unenforcable. As someone else wrote, how do you check the background of someone who has worked in half a dozen countries? And we have all heard of teachers with fake degrees... wouldn't a criminal be able to get a fake "police check" just as easily?

[Calories]

Lots of pedophiles never get caught.

[thrifty]

Why the surprise? When your life goes wrong, become a TEFuller.

[drteacher]

Yes...that's right thrifty...there are no pedophiles in other occupations like the priesthood, CEO's or politician's, only us lowly TEFLers.

[thrifty]

I never said that there were no pedophiles in other occupations. I said that when your life goes wrong, become a TEFuller and that why be surprised about finding pedophiles in TEFull.

You got the lowly part right.

[kerrilee]

My last CRB check in the UK took 7 months, as I had been living in NZ and Canada. I dread to think it will take this time after living in Thailand and China........

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

I've just deleted three postings for being insulting and/or personal attacks.

Stay on topic and off of the insults and personal attacks.

If not, the thread goes bye-bye and sanctions will be applied to individual members, as appropriate.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

There are still a lot of differing stories coming out about this guy. Originally, the news reported that an annonymous American official said Karr was already being held in Thailand for an unrelated sex offence that occured in that country. But Thailand's head of immigration police is now saying that he's unaware of any charges standing in Thailand. Thai police are also saying that Karr denied having killed the girl, although CNN last night was saying that he confessed, and then showed a clip in which he did not confess. Keep in mind, that there was a huge investigation in the US, and this guy's name never came up once (and the family had never heard of him, but the investigators were pretty sure that the victim actually knew the killer- that's a big chunk of why the parents were heavily suspected). It's not like he was hiding out from the law in Thailand.

My initial thought on hearing this story (I first heard about it yesterday morning on the radio) was that this guy had been charged with a crime in Thailand, was worried about what might happen to him in that country and so said something that would get him into the States, where he wouldn't automatically be considered guilty, and then he'd get it sorted out there.

About criminal record checks, I agree that there's really no way for that to be feasible.

[SueH]

[Sgt Killjoy]

He wasn't looking for work, he was working in Thailand. Names of the schools and some other information that you won't find anywhere else are on Teflwatch right now. Bascially, people did try to expose a pedophile at one of the schools he was working at, but I don't have confirmation yet that the accused in that case was the killer.

[Thespis3039]

I do criminal background checks in the US for a very large corporation that does nothing but background screenings (so we have a lot of internal systems at our disposal). It�s hard enough to get criminal records in a timely manner when someone has traveled between states let alone between countries. So many governmental hurdles, so much blind wandering and false positives you have to weed through.
Plus, don't forget that the age of consent is all over the place in different countries. Some places sex between a 34 year old and a 15 year old is perfectly legal, and elsewhere it is perfectly criminal.

Should schools perform mandatory criminal background checks? Yes

Is it at all practical or thoroughly feasible? No

Is the process getting easier with the influx of shared information technologies? Yeah�but we�ve got a way to go.

PS. I�m not defending pedophiles or phebophiles (sp?); I�m just saying there are some sticky wickets (wow�that was a poor choice of metaphors)