Korean Job Discussion Forums

[littlelisa]

[PatrickGHBusan]

[Dodge7]

[PatrickGHBusan]

[LindaYee]

Foreigners do not/cannot get sick! Why would a hagwon be prepared for something that does not exist.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

Cheap. Cheap. Cheap.

It's Korean mgmt 101.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Lets review the basics...

Most foreign English teachers in Korea are on a sponsored E2 visa. That visa has limitations on working a second location and getting permission to do that is not instantaneous (papers must be filed).

Substitute teachers would need to have permission AND be available on short notice AND the hiring school would need permission to hire one.

So, in short, it is a visa question, not a $ question.

How would a Hakwon be able to have substitutes on standby? They could not hire an E2 teacher and pay him to stay at home.

F-visa holders are not all teachers (most are not) and those that are typically have jobs they like better than sitting on standby for substitute slots to open up.

The same holds true for Public Schools are they too hire E2 teachers.

Heck, I got it, perhaps they (Hakwons and PS) should create and fund a available paid subs that have an open ticket in their hand to quickly fly over in case a sub is needed. Heck, no way, they should house these subs in a central location in Korea, just in case.

The only manageable solution considering we are talking about foreign workers here (ie not local teachers) would be for Hakwons or P. Schools to hire an extra teacher to work part-time at their school in case subs are needed and that makes very little sense considering the trouble schools have to go through to sponsor and hire a teacher.

[some waygug-in]

Bigger hagwons used to be able to arrange subs within their own staff.

People agreed to cover for each other.

The sick teacher ususally has to cover all the costs.

That's why it's not too popular.

Places having only 1 or 2 Ft's would have a hard time with it for sure.

[PatrickGHBusan]

[Who's Your Daddy?]

If the Busan board of education (or other large cities) wanted to hire a substitute foreigner they could. They could hire an F visa holder and send him to different locations each day.

[DaeguNL]

I worked at a school a couple years ago that had a total of 11 foreign teachers. The other 2 branches(same owner) had 20-25 at an given time. You would think a place with 30 + foreign teachers who each had 10 holidays and 3 sick days, would have a floating teacher...nope just complete mayhem in the instance of a sick day, and a tonne of juggling classes when a teacher took vacation time. My last school owner would cheap out and fill in during sick time and vacation time....my 3 year old nephew would have been a better fit.

[Skippy]

[viciousdinosaur]

Schools don't need to change schedules or keep teachers on standby or anything else. There are substitutes available. They are out there. And there's more than enough of them. A permanent resident with afternoon classes can cover morning classes, and vice versa. The only issue is the pay. For 20,000/hr you won't entice permanent residents to substitute. I personally don't get out of bed for anything less than 35,000/hr. You want a substitute, pay at least 30,000/hr and you'll have one. Simple as that. But cheap-o hagwons go ape-shit if they have to pay even a dollar more for their labour. And that's how it is. You'd be better off hiring your own substitute and paying out of pocket, if you are truly hard-up. I see people on Craigslist advertising for that very thing.

[Zyzyfer]

YBM ELS (at the bigger ones) had an interesting solution. Teachers with more tenure would do sub hours. They appealed to the teachers because they get paid but don't have to teach that hour generally. Director was happy because someone is on call to take a class from a sick teacher, or do interviews, or do whatever other tasks there might be. It wasn't perfect but I'd say 80% of cases were solved without incident. We had 25 or so teachers at the time, though.

[PatrickGHBusan]