Korean Job Discussion Forums

[melbournegirl]

A friend of mine is doing a project related to homestay and looking at the possibility of developing legislative regulations and codes of practice.
Anyhow during her research she's heard some stories about Korean parents going to Australia on holiday Visa's and basically "dumping" their kids, some very young, in homestay or with relatives.
She's asked me if I know anything about this so I thought I'd ask here.

Please mail back if you have heard any such stories. This will help in the push to develop critical legislation. Your comments will be kept anonymous. Thanks in advance.

[Ekuboko]

I don't know if that happened to them, but there are two brothers at my middle school who spent 3 years together in a Melbourne homestay. One is a now first grader and the other is a 3rd grader. They came back in December and started at my school this month.

I've met both briefly. The older boy said he would've liked to have stayed in Aust. longer but their homestay wasn't that great and their parents decided to just get them back to Korea. Actually he was vague, so I don't know much at all and cannot speculate.

Last year I had a 1st grader who spent a year in Auckland with an NZ homestay family. She said it wasn't that good but they were her mum's acquaintances so she didn't feellike she could complain much.
At the end of last year she said that she might be going to Canada for a year. Her mother's idea and she didn't want to go. I suggested she tell her mother to wait until she was older, but she's not at school now, so I guess she's gone.

I saw a 20/20 story before I left for Korea about kids (as young as 7 or who are sent to other countries to live and study. They focussed on a primary school in Auckland who were actively recruiting in Korea and China. International students = big money for the school. They also interviewed some of the homestay families involved with hosting such young kids.

Coincidentally the next year I was teaching in a school and was pulled out of class to go and meet some NZ visitors in the principal's office -- the vice-P and some others on the PR trip from that same Auckland school were doing their sales pitch to us!

[Mashimaro]

I heard that it is technically illegal to send young students abroad to study. Can't remember the reason I was told.

[happeningthang]

Who is your friend doing this study for?

[nautilus]

Dumping kids with rellies is quite normal in korean culture.

A co-worker who had her baby in December has hardly seen it since- its been in the care of the grandmother.

[princess]

[melbournegirl]

She's doing a consultancy ? who for, and she works for the Tenants Union in Melbourne.