Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cassimira]

In ya'll's experience, what is the normal student turnover rate in a hagwon??
Our Korean friends have told us that its normal to have a pretty high turnover rate, but we're concerned our number might be excessively high.

I've been crunching numbers, and it looks like, since our first month, our hagwon has lost about 28% of the kids in the English program in the past 7 months. Now, a good amount of this was stuff beyond our control.... several kids moved to new towns, or did badly on a school test at the public school so their moms panicked, etc. We also had a bit of a organizational nightmare in a staff/curriculum shakedown our first few months, so some of it was that.

However, given this, does this rate seem unusually high to anyone else? The kids seem to really like us, so we're kind of at a loss as to what's going on.

[Son Deureo!]

As I'm sure your boss has already told you, the sole factor that determines student retention and recruitment is how good its foreign teachers are. If 28% of the students have left in recent months, that means that 28% of the students were dissatisfied with you as a teacher. Period.

I'm sure there will be naysayers on this board who will be quick to tell you that other factors may have been involved despite your best efforts. Some will tell you it may be because the students were lured away by a rival English hogwon, or that hogwons are a seasonal and cyclical business with new students arriving every winter and summer, only to disappear every spring and autumn. You may also hear that some parents may wish to have their children focus on other priorities besides English such as taekwondo or mathematics. You may even hear that some parents will decide their children should spend more time with their families.

Don't believe them. It's all your fault. How could your boss possibly be wrong when he is admonishing his subordinates?

Now go ahead and teach those Saturday classes and stop asking what happened to your health insurance and overtime pay while your boss drives a brand new car to work.

[Nester Noodlemon]

[northway]

My school lost 50% of its enrollment in kindergarten last year, but we're still doing fine.

My friend actually has it written into her contract that if she loses a third of her kinder homeroom she can be fired. I told her not to sign it and they insisted that it was very rare and only when teachers do a bad job. I call BS.

[raptorsfan]

[Radius]

[northway]

[Son Deureo!]

[tomato]

Son Deureo! is right.
I once worked at a school where there were three foreign teachers, each of us teaching one-third of the students.
One day, the director sent notes home with the students, but she didn't tell us what the notes said.
One of the other foreign teachers asked the advanced students what the notes said.
They said that it was announcing a fee increase.
Two-thirds of the students quit.
The director kept me in the school and transferred the other two foreign teachers to another branch.
Then she told me that the students quit because I was such a boring teacher.
I'm sure she was telling the truth because a Korean director would never lie.

[southernman]

[Juregen]

[Juregen]