Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crashlanding]

As demand for English teachers in Korea continues to wane, the Ministry of Education may worsen the situation for the industry by making a law that would ban private language schools known in Korean as “hagwons” from hiring native speakers as teachers.

http://expatnewswire.com/news/2014/12/19/south-korea-looks-to-ban-foreigners-in-preschools/

[dairyairy]

The owners of some of those kindy "schools" are some of the sleaziest people in the Korean ESL industry. They already hire Russians, who spend class time playing with tape recorders. If legal foreigners are banned then they will hire illegals, pay them 1.2-1.6, and get away with it.

[Weigookin74]

The government is treating the symptoms here and not the problem. As long as there is a demand for high test scores for good high schools, university exams, and company English interviews, then parents will be compelled to pay for English if the public school doesn't teach it. (If they wanted to put the private industry out of business, they'd intorduce English to some degree in Kindergarden and through the early grades. But, they don't. Hence the appeal of the private sector.)

[Weigookin74]

Korenas need what most westerners had years ago and that is the chance to earn high pay for jobs that don't even require high school. It use to be, when my parents were young, you could quit school and go out to work. You'd make money if not right away then eventually. Nowadays, that chance seems much less.

Koreans don't have a trade system. Some guy goes to university and inspects everyone elses work on a work site. So, all those electricians, plumbers, repair men have no chance to make any money because there's too many of them and no "trade" wage. Guess, it's good in the sense we get some of this work cheap. Asides from working in a unionized car factory, I'm not sure what job that pays high money can be gotten without taking an exam. They sure do love exams over here. If they got rid of all this examinations for everything, it would probably eliminate a lot of the need to study like crazy and the hakwons would disappear over time.

[Lucas]

The courts ruled it illegal to ban foreigners from working in kindi, i saw it on the new the other night....