English Plus Language School Bangkok Closes?

In the past few months a lot of businesses worldwide have been feeling the pinch of the world economic downturn. Although education has always been one of those industries that tends not to be affected by global economics. Unless of course you run a private language company that relies on students who pay for their study there. When things get tight the purse strings get tightened and English lessons are dropped!

It certainly looks like one of the largest language companies in Thailand’s ELT business has felt the financial squeeze more than the others. For veteran teachers of the Thai ESL scene ELT communications also known as English plus has always been a disaster in the waiting.

The company was started in 2002 by a Thai called Mr Manoch who has quite a reputation here in Bangkok’s ESL industry. Any mention of his name usually stirs up lots of four letter expletives amongst teachers and school admins.

The company was founded back in 2002, and quickly grew into big player in the Bangkok ESL scene. Mr Manoch and his partner Miss Bun built up quite a number of government school contracts in and around Bangkok and other provinces.

Lots of E+ franchise branches started up in and around Bangkok and also upcountry. Around about 2002-2005 there was literally an E plus branch on every street corner throughout Bangkok. Many people thought that English+ / elt communications was a business on the up and up. All the franchise branches and the extensive government school contracts made English+ look like a major player that was going to be in the ELT teaching scene for the duration.

What went wrong then?

It’s difficult to say what really went wrong, though there is and always was plenty of speculation flying about. Stories of franchise E+ branch owners being conned, government schools dissatisfied with the English plus management and some of the E plus instructors. However there were always stories going around that English plus was about to go bankrupt, these stories went right back to 2003 just a year after the company was founded!

English + a company that just gets smaller and smaller!

Any keen observer on the inside of ELT would have noticed that English plus was actually shrinking ever year. Contracts were being shed like there was no tomorrow. The idea in business was always to expand? I wonder where this fitted into the ELT managements business strategy.

ELT communications where did it all go tits up?

Was it the business practices of the company and the director perhaps?

Could ELT / English + have been yet another victim of the recent economic downturn?

We can only wonder and speculate as to what has happened to this once big time language school player in Thailand’s ESL industry!