Korean Job Discussion Forums

piscin · Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Location: Seoul

I know it can vary from school to school, but is there usually two or three months holiday?

kat2 · Joined: 25 Oct 2005 Location: Busan, South Korea

The students and the Kteachers get about 40 days in summer and 40-50 days in winter.
EPIK teachers I think get about 14 days vacation
I get 4 weeks in my contract (I'm up to 6 already though).
It just depends, but no public school is going to give you teh same vacation treatment as the Kteachers.

Smee · Joined: 24 Dec 2004 Location: Jeollanam-do

My contract gives me 5 weeks. I've had 3 weeks so far, plus two more coming in February. The remainder will come in the summer.

Some programs, like EPIK and GEPIK, are pretty strict about how much vacation time they dole out. They still give more time than hagwon, but significantly less than other programs.

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

saybanana · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Location: LA

I work for GEPIK.
I only get 14 work days off or nearly 3 whole weeks. I usually place them around major holidays like my last one when I put it on around christmas and New years and so I felt like I got an extra 2 days off.
There are a few good holidays like Chuseok or Lunar New Year, but unless the fall on weekdays they are really 3 day weekends.

My school is really picky about giving me extra vacation time. Something about protecting taxpayer's money.

Here comes spring break, Ill be at my empty school, doing some teahing like a mini camp, with endless amounts of cleaning and preparing for the next semester until 5pm. At least I get Monday 19th off, and March 1st off.

For Korean teachers, most in my school took real vacations, except the 2 days they must come in to school. They choose to do teacher training to advance themselves and get more points. Foreign teahers, its mandatory they come in. They dont choose, hey, im going to use my vacation to be trained. Though I do wish there was some time so we can train to become better teachers, share ideas, and so on throughout the school year (I dont mean orientation).

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

gmat · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

JeJuJitsu · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Location: McDonald's

Peter Jackson · Joined: 23 Apr 2006

I was hired privately (not through GEPIK, EPIK, etc) but the contract I signed was pretty close to the one used by GEPIK. The stated days off were 14 and at the time I thought it was standard. I got WAY more the 14 days (over 2 months and counting) as the school is small and in a rural location so interest in winter/summer camps was negligible. In terms of the Koreans getting a lot more holidays that was definately NOT the case at my school! I only taught two hours this month, and zero last month. All the while most (if not all) of the Koreans are on campus working their arses off. I really feel like a chump but there really is NOTHING for me to do until my contract is up on 28 FEB.

I didn't re-sign as I heard that they were going to stick to the standard GEPIK contract next year...

Vacations vary per school. Try to get hired by the school directly (my school received funding from the city NOT the education office).

saybanana · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Location: LA

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

Thumbnail Postermonkey · Joined: 24 Jul 2006

I signed a crap 10 month contract, but it's turning up roses for me....I've worked about 30 minutes in the last 7 work days and I'm up for 17 calendar days of paid holiday tomorrow until the 4th of March. So, it's OKOK with me!!

newinseoul · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Location: Busan

SMOE is currently offering 21 paid working days of vacation.

Now whether or not we can take that anytime we want is debatable. Since there is a clause that we may have to work summer and winter camps. How many days of that we have to work is also highly up in the air, as it doesn't say anything on the contract about it.

jaderedux · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: Lurking outside Seoul

Honestly I think the best thing for all of us is to not discuss this in a public forum. Alot of school have contracts but don't really follow them. So I very seldom talk about it. Some follow to the letter and some don't the best thing is to avoid mentioning it or talking about it.

I know this seems silly but it is better for all of us if we keep our vacation time private. Of course we get public holidays and random days. But my advice is to not discuss it with anyone otherwise the schools will start to enforce to the letter.

Jade

eamo · Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

Can anyone guess why Korean school vacations are the opposite of those in the West. i.e. We take a two month Summer vacation and a one month winter. They do the opposite here. Why?