Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pheeeel]

I am considering employment with YBM at Jookjeon ECC or Nam-Bundang ECC. I plan on coming to S. Korea in late April.
If anyone has worked for these schools or knows anything about them or other corporate-owned YBM schools, I would love to hear about your experience.
How is YBM, good, bad? I've heard some complaints about YBM treating the workers like slave labor, at least as hours are concerned. Only 105 teaching hours per month, but over the phone, the HR rep wouldn't say how many total hours per week/month. And when I asked if I could contact a foreign teacher at the schools, he seemed reluctant to oblige. He said after I commit to a school, then that would be possibly. Sounds a little sketch to me. What do you think?
IF anyone has firstand info about the work at YBM and the private studio housing, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks

[Mr. BlackCat]

Hello,

you can find all sorts of info on ECC using the search function, I'm sure. There's people on here every week asking about the company. I don't know about the two specific schools you mentioned, though.

Here's the skinny on ECC in general: You get paid less for more work than most hakwons. The 105 hours/mo. may look good, heck I was signed on for 95 hrs/mo! But those are actual minutes, not classes. So I was doing up to 40 40 minute classes a week with very little OT. Some others have not had the same experience, though. This year I have a 120hr contract but I'm in the classroom less. And there's generally less work to do, all while getting paid significantly more. I don't mind putting in hours, but you had better compensate me for it.


Starting in March, as far as I know, there will no longer be Korean Kindy teachers and foreigners will have extra classes with the little 'uns. Even more than before. Basically if they had it their way you'd live in a classroom and perhaps visit each student every night to tuck them in. They even organize their holidays in a way that makes it difficult to leave the country or do any serious travelling. And they'll try to load you up with 'work' around that holiday so you can't get away.

BUT, they were always really nice to me and took us out to many dinners and such. I got paid on time and rarely had any major problems with technical stuff. And I met some really great people there, too. I liked it as a rookie gig because I never had to worry about being paid and it was a pretty professional environment with lots of direction for first-timers.

I've said it before, if you want stability ECC is a good place. If you're in a position to gamble a bit then look elsewhere for larger rewards.

Recently the company has fallen on hard times, or so they say. I'm sure that means that they are only making 900billion won profit instead of a trillion. So they are 'tinkering' with things like, oh I don't know, the lives of teachers.

Anyway, good luck.