Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DongtanTony]

Since I come from the land of hagwons...I'm very confused about how public schools deal with vacation periods.

How much vacation time do you folks receive?

Are there any issues regarding severance payments with extended vacation periods especially if the school system may not think that you've fulfilled your 12 months of "teaching?"

I guess this applies to university teachers and international school teachers as well....

Are these vacation periods drying up with "summer programs," "camp programs," or similarly created techniques to maximize a teacher's 12 month contractual obligation?

Is summer vacation a thing of the past??

Fill me in Dave's faithful....I'm considering making a switch....but I'm hearing some interesting stories...I'm looking to filter fact from fiction.

[ttompatz]

Standard GEPIK contract (some, like Gangwon-do offer more):

14 WORKING days - 7 in summer and 7 in winter is the standard.
These days do NOT include weekends or national holidays.

IF you are in a rural designated school you get 5 MORE working days.

IF you renew you get an additional 2 calendar weeks.

The total works out to 3-6 weeks of (official) paid annual vacation.

Additionally, you can bank time for additional days off.
There are also extra days that are NOT included but you get them off as well (sports day, school's birthday, etc).

Then, depending on your school and their plans you MAY get additional unofficial time off during the holiday periods.

The school down the road from us needs a new teacher....

.

[DongtanTony]

If I remember correctly...I believe you once said you're in Seohyeon??

I recently relocated to Yatap...interesting....

Thanks for the contract information...

[pkang0202]

My school likes to take the optional school holidays (teacher's day, school's birthday, etc...) on Saturdays.

I think one time we have a weekday off, and it was a Thursday. That following monday was a holiday. IF the school had picked the day after, we would've had a 4 day weekend. But NO, of course they wouldn't do that. They don't want teachers to have 4 day weekends.

[Dome Vans]

I get three months at my schools out in the sticks. My contract says 14 days but because there isn't a ton of winter/summer camps (which are optional) then it amounts to 2 months in the winter and 1 month (potentially) in the summer.

This summer I'll do a 2 week camp at my own school and get extra for it. A few other native teachers are expected to go in and seat warm during the exams. But some of us don't.

I did the research on this province and it was by far and away the best at the time. Hence my renewing. If you have a good gig, some of the terms might change with the EPIK scheme but as long as you still get the time off then you can take a few little set backs. Many teachers got no raise when they renewed but stayed anyway. Better the devil you know!

I get treated similar to the Korean teachers. The principals are very cool about this length of time off. I'm never involved in the paperwork but I get signed off for these periods as though I'm a Korean teacher. As long as they see those VP and Principal's signatures then I doubt the Office of Education really bothers about the length of time we get off. Nobody's going to single out me for my vacation time because it seems to be fairly relaxed. Considering it takes (from what Ttompatz says) a year to get a new FT in place they usually nice and lenient about these things.