On 5 November 2010, Labour Section of the Royal Thai Embassy in Tel-Aviv travelled to visit Thai agricultural interns who joined the cooperation program between the Office of Vocational Education Commission and Arava INT Center for Agricultural Training (AICAT), which had been underway since 1993. There had already been 11 groups of Thai students (150 people in each group), who had passed the test, participated in this program. They came from provinces across the country. In addition, there were students from other countries such as Burma, India, Nepal, and Philippine, participated in this program. The training under such a program was part of the requirement of the high vocational education curriculum. It was an 11 month-long training and students had to take some academic courses from Thailand before they could receive training in Arava. After they returned to Thailand, they still had to take additional courses for approximately 3 months before they completed a high vocational education qualification. After meeting with the intern students, it was found that under AICAT program student were required to work 6 days and study 1 day each week. They were required to perform the work like other agricultural workers. However for their safety, they were prohibited to perform risky work such as spraying insecticide.
Intern students were paid on the Israeli minimum wage rate, equivalent to 116 shekel per day (after being deducted by other expenses) with overtime payment of 18 shekel per hour. However, these students had to buy their own return-flight ticket in order to go back to Thailand (30,000 Bath). They said that the good thing about this program was that it provided them opportunities to gain work experience; learn new type of agricultural knowledge; learn to integrate into society; learn to take care of themselves; learn to develop financial discipline because they must send some of their income to their family. In addition, they had opportunity to practice their English with other fellow students. However, male and female students were randomly arranged to live in camps with other Thai workers. There were reports of female student being harassed by Thai workers. The supervisors notified that students were required to protect themselves in according to their safety measure. Therefore, Labour Section would like to ask for cooperation from Thai worker to be polite and behave well to these students.
