Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hatcher]

My understanding is that you take your monthly or weekly hour total and figure out the ave hourly rate. The OT rate should be at least 1.2 and even 1.5 that rate. In most cases, and Shingu College is the worst, the rate is less than this figure.
At an interview at Korea U I asked the lady how she came up with 25k as an OT rate. She refused to answer.

[purple_buddha]

OT rates at Korean universities are generally lower than your hourly wage (if you were to calculate your monthly salary based on each hour of instruction). Accounting for hours taught only, on a 15-hour schedule, most "professors" earn about 45-65k/hr. Of course, that hourly rate doesn't consider other factors, such as planning, grading, office hours, commuting, meetings, and so on. IMO 25k per hour of OT sounds about average, perhaps low for a school like Goryeo though.

[PRagic]

Almost all administrative and owenership structures are set up to heavily benefit owners here, and education is no exception. Figured at an hourly rate, my university salary is over 200K/hour; the overtime rate is 30K/hour. We are 'strongly encouraged' to work an extra class every other semester at this joke of a rate, though. Why? Oh, it's sacrifice for the school. They 'like us to'.

In general, for BA/MA instructors, this system has developed so that they don't have to hire and provide benefits to additinional teachers. This is why 'overtime' is mandatory at many places. If the five teachers on staff are all pulling an hour or two of overtime, then they don't have to hire a new teacher.

Personally, I think the system is a joke, and overtime has been one of my pet peeves since I got here. If overtime rates continue to remain low, and if people teach at these wages, then the system won't change. If they want 'overtime', it should financially hurt them to the point that they want to hire additional teachers.

[jinks]

Our school doubled the number of BA/MA instructors this semester. Overtime is not compulsory, but we get between 30-50,000 per hour depending on the programme (the 30,000 gig is for teaching a 50 min "hour"). I don't know how the administration calculates the overtime rate, but the 30,000 classes are easy money, the 50,000 classes require a bit more preparation.

[PRagic]

Sounds like a decent place, but we'd have to know the whole story. Korea U., for example, increased the number of teachers, too, but they also increased the base contact hours and scaled back the pay.

SNU tries to hire more teachers, and they do pay decent overtime rates, but the job itself pays 30-40% less than it used to for more contact hours.

Sejong U. hires more people, but the pay scales and contact hour requirements were changed to benefit...yup, the school.

Konkuk hires people through its institute. Those used to be department jobs that paid fairly well.