Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gollum]

Ok, just so you all know....

The public high school jobs funded by Kyonngi-do which are cropping up aren't going to be as rosey as we first thought. Kyonggi held a meeting with school officials today and told them they only want to hire people with a minimum of a BA and TESL/TEFL Certificate. Even with that, the maximum pay you're going to get is 2.1 per month. With an education degree, you're going to max out at 2.2.

They want more qualified people -- well and fine... BUT they don't want to pay for it.

They also are only going to allow 2 weeks of vacation per year. My school has been giving 3 1/2 months paid when include holidays and tests, and now they say they want to go to 2 weeks. They said it's because of Kyonggi, and agree it's stupid because 2 months of that they don't even have students for us to teach! Their solution: Please come and sit in the office all day for a month in Summer and a month in Winter!

SO all of this means that you're getting Hagwon pay for having more credentials. Oh, you also get to teach 35 students per class, though! The grandiose vacations are going by the wayside, and it ticks me off because our Korean teachers get EXTRA pay for working during that time.

My director said that they, "...want to follow the EPIK guidelines...." whatever that means. I never heard much good about EPIK, so this can't be too promising.

By the way, I also learned that schools who apply for the money to have a foreign teacher can get it a max of 2 years -- so if you like it there, don't plan on being there for longer than that!

[just because]

[Real Reality]

Gollum wrote,
"They want more qualified people -- well and fine... BUT they don't want to pay for it."

Are employers really paying fully for the qualified people already teaching in Korea?

[Demophobe]

[Ajarn Miguk]

[Grotto]

Its the typical Korean follow the leader bullcrap! Someone with a little authority says: "hey if we are giving all of these schools money for foriegn teachers shouldnt they have to dance to our piper too?".

I am in GEPIK which is similar to EPIK. Anyways....when I first arrived at my school I was forced to attend a meeting with a Mr Kwon. The meeting lasted 6.5 effing hours and went something like this: 1.5 hours being driven to the school where the meeting was to take place. .5 hours waiting for other teachers to show up. .5 hours of actual meeting. 1.5 hours of being paraded around at the local school boards main office and a mandatory tour of a farmers market. 1 hour of a mandatory dinner at the mandatory traditional restuarant and finally 1.5 hours of getting back home.

At first the Kwon character wanted meetings every Wednesday. I said no freaking way! I have more important things to do that waste hours of my time going to bullcrap meetings! Meetings changed to once a month...annoying but bearable. I just found out this guy has nothing to do with GEPIK, nothing to do with me, and nothing to do with my school. Just some petty little beaurocrat dicking everyone around because he can. Of course all the Koreans jumped on the 'a higher up has said we must do something so we must go' bandwagon.

Koreans are sheep! This whole loss of face crap is keeping them in the stoneage(business wise).

I was informed yesterday that the meetings with Mr Kwon will start again in the new year(February). I told them 'no' I have previous commitments on Wednesdays that require me to be there at 4:45 so I am very sorry but I cannot attend these meetings as I am often not back home til 5-5:30 at the earliest. Too bad so sad!

But I digress. What you describe is similar to what I have discussed. Someone says that since you get government money you should follow our government program......but we are not part of EPIK....doesnt matter we give you money you do like we do or no more money....but EPIK is only for public government funded schools we are a private school......WHAT!! WHY YOU QUESTION ME??? I BIG BOSS! I TELL YOU DO.... YOU DO!

Typical.

[Daechidong Waygookin]

Wow, thats too bad. Sucks being hired through EPIK or GEPIK then. Is that right that 2.1 is the MAX you can make? Anyway, I guess Im counting my lucky stars I have nothing to do with either system.
If you wanna get paid well, dont teach a public schools via EPIK or GEPIK. YEs RR, some DO pay well.

[Grotto]

i make 2.4 base salary when I actually get paid my overtime it works out to 2.72

[crazylemongirl]

I remember about a month or so ago I was asked by Gyeonggi Do what my credientials were, along with where I had worked and who was in my family (that question was totally bizzare) Perhaps this is releated.

I think there is a push on by gyeonggi do to try and standardise things in the public school as a lot of teachers with a bit of experience try and flee the hagwon trade so there has been an increase in applicants. Gyeonggi Do has realised this and is trying to get more of a bang for their buck. Also I think they want to push all the teachers into the GEPIK contract, which I would never sign as it blows goats.

As people are realising that these public school jobs aren't that much better than hogwons in terms of conditions a lot of them will go back to hogwons where they will get more money and smaller class sizes.

What they are doing is shooting themselves in the foot though as I'm negotiating with my school to do an 'english culture' club activity class once a month on saturdays which is basically doing some visits around places as well as looking at food and music. In exchange I've asked for a better vacation clause in my contract. The school wins because they get some extra classes, the students win because the summer class is shorter and I win because I get a longer vacation.

What they fail to realise in this centralised planning is that all gyeonggi do really does is pay salaries and the really important thing is the teacher- school relationship. A lot of us do extra work outside of contracts because we've built up a good relationship with our schools. This will disappear under the system that they are trying to implement.

Also the schools that hire for themselves are going to lose out big time. They are basically going to get some teacher who may or may not have experience in korea or elsewhere dumped in their school by a recuriter (because I've seen the advertisments by recuirters on behalf of GEPIK) who probably lied to both the school and teacher to get the teacher to sign on.

I like that I got to see where the school was located and take a look around the city and accomdation before I signed on before coming to teach here as I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. The teachers who came through a recuirter got a totally different view and many of them were resentful of this from the start.

[Daechidong Waygookin]

[Derrek]

Similar situation for me in my private school. Was told that Kyonggi wants to hire only teachers with a TESL/TEFL. I am searching for an online school now. I posted about all of this in another thread.

The foreigners at my school have agreed that we won't stick around if our school tries to cut our vacation down to hagwon level.

[crazylemongirl]

I think that gyeonggi is really shooting themselves in the foot over this. They are going to have trouble finding people with the tesl/tefl qualifications to fill current positions and it looks like they are going to lose existing people over it.

My school system went from being highly selective to take a warm body very quickly as they found that their highering requirements were to high for the kind of money and conditiosn that they were offering.

[Derrek]

CrazyM, I want to agree with you about not having enough qualified people, but my friend who is in charge of recruiting for many of these public positions says that plenty of applicants have the TESL/TEFL certificate. I found it hard to believe, but I don't see why my friend would lie.

I am sure they will find it more difficult to find someone they like when they actually interview all of these "qualified" people. I know that my school interviewed something like 7 people before choosing me. I am told that some of them were very qualified, but the school just wanted to be picky, and likely find someone that fit whatever mold they had.

I'll get to see some of this first-hand, as the school has asked me to "sit in" on interviews for another local school position next Tuesday. The mother of one of our students runs that school, and requested it as a favor. I look forward to the experience, and seeing the caliber of teachers being interviewed.

[Derrek]

[crazylemongirl]