Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Aussiekimchi]

At the moment this 3 month grace period is ONLY for teachers with current visas in Korea and currently working now.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com
under the headline "Embassies bar help for teachers' visas".

The change quoted in the newspaper and verified on the immigration website and by a call to Incheon, Mokdong and Suwon Immigration (can't be too careful) says that the new E-2 visa requirements will be postponed until March 15th, 2008...for teachers in Korea now.

Therefore, anyone on a visa that expires before March 15th, 2008 will be able to renew their visa without submitting a criminal record check and health certificate.
You will however need to submit a CRC for the following visa (assuming there are no further changes to this law).

Info on the new requirements has been posted in English on the immigration website
http://www.immigration.go.kr/HP/IMM80/index.do

but the information about the postponed date is only on the Korean site.

Here's the article...it is all a bit heresay but the 3 month grace period until March 15 is confirmed...could this be the start of more policy reversals?
Maybe one day, Korean govt officials will realise that for every action there is a positive AND negative reaction!

Embassies bar help for teachers� visas

December 14, 2007

Foreign English teachers in Korea may not be able to depend on their embassies for help in securing criminal record clearances required under new E-2 visa regulations that go into effect tomorrow.
At least seven embassies in Korea have told the Justice Ministry that they cannot provide the record checks for their citizens locally, a move that could mean long delays or expensive trips back to their home countries for foreign English teachers.
Despite the thumbs down from embassy officials to the request for cooperation, the ministry said yesterday that it will not ease the new regulations.
The new policy requires applicants for the E-2 visa to provide detailed criminal and health records before receiving a new or renewed visa, documents that were not required previously except for those who applied through the Ministry of Education to work in public schools. The new rule means that teachers in language academies, or hagwon, also must secure the clearances.
The move is a direct response to the case of Christopher Paul Neil, a Canadian English teacher who taught in Korea before being arrested in Thailand in October on charges of sexually assaulting children.
Diplomats from the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa met with Justice Ministry officials on Dec. 10 to discuss the new regulations.
�We had the meeting to explain some details of the policy to the consuls and we also wanted to get responses from them on whether embassies in Korea can set up some sort of centralized system to provide the additional documents,� said Choi Nam-il, visa policy coordinator at the ministry. �The gist of the meeting was they told us they respect the policy, but the embassies cannot provide those services.�
Embassies, including those of the U.S. and New Zealand, either have already been providing or will offer E-2-related information on their local Web sites.
While D-Day is tomorrow, the agency granted a three-month grace period for current E-2 visa holders to give them more time to prepare the necessary documents, according to the agency�s Web site.
Because the embassies do not provide such services here in Korea, the new guidelines are likely to send E-2 visa holders back home to secure documents unless their countries provide the service online or by mail.
Before the change, teachers could go to a neighboring country to renew their visas and re-enter Korea without providing additional documents.
According to the agency, the change will affect 17,200 foreign teachers ― about 11,000 of them from the U.S. and Canada ― and any who apply for visas in the future. In addition, the local language academies who hire 90 percent of the current E-2 visa holders will be hit, as they may have to bear the cost of the measure in the highly competitive market for hiring teachers.
�If the consuls and the Justice Ministry haven�t reached some sort of compromise, then this is going to be a big problem for us,� said Yoon Ji-young, head of the instructor support team at Pagoda Academy Inc., a major language school. �We were led to believe that the embassies would eventually accommodate the change. I had the impression that the FBI branch in Korea would help the United States Embassy get criminal records for their nationals.�
But according to the Justice Ministry�s Choi, neither the FBI nor two U.S. Embassy officials who attended the meeting warmed to that idea.
�I just don�t understand why they cannot make some exceptions to accommodate the needs of their own nationals,� Choi said. �In Korea, criminal records can be easily obtained online. But they don�t have a centralized system.�
The U.S. Embassy said yesterday in response to a query that �The Embassy�s American Citizen Services office is continuing to discuss the new E-2 requirements with Korean government officials.�
New Zealand Consul Peter Nunan said that although the embassy in Korea cannot provide the service, New Zealanders can obtain criminal records by mail. �It will take a little more than 20 days,� he said.
�The question is who will pay the additional cost?� said Yoon, the instructor support team head at Pagoda. �Some private language schools will pay on behalf of instructors, others will ask the instructors to pay. The already steep competition among private language schools will become worse because of the heightened cost ... But the eventual losers will be consumers, who will end up paying extra.�

By Lee Yang-kyoung Staff Reporter [[email protected]]

[Atavistic]

[boyne11]

^word!

[GreenlightmeansGO]

Everything I've read tells me I'm in luck if I want to 'renew' my visa, but what if I want to start a new contract - at another hagwon?
My contract ends Feb 29, so I do fall into the 'grace period', but it looks like I will still have to do the CRC and health checks if I want to change jobs. That's gonna suck.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Would a CRC have stopped Christopher Neil from getting an E2? I don't think so. As someone who's contract is up 1 August I think I just may really enjoy watching all of this pan out. This will be great for academies in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand (where Neil actually commited sex crimes), but I think some hagwons in Korea are really going have to reconsider their role for foreingers in the coming year. Given that most wongjongnims can't think more than one month ahead there should be some wonderful cases of morons selling white faces having no white faces to sell.

[dutchy pink]

Still, the whole March "grace period" remains unclear.
Can anyone, with 100% accuracy, by Korean standards of course, clarify what that means and who it pertains to.
1. People already here renewing their Visa in the same school before March?
2. people here who have a visa, but are switching to a new school?
3. Everybody here.

[Hyeon Een]

This week there has been truckloads of uni teachers renewing their E2 for the next year. I was there on Friday and there were hundreds of us. The immi people were super cool about it and didn't even look at our documents before sorting us out. I, and apparantely several hundred other uni lecturers, are good until Feb 28 2009 now. They were rushing us through.. I guess trying to get us 'done' before the new regs' kicked in.

If you didn't get your visa renewed before yesterday, good luck =)

[wylies99]

This will mean many more teaching on tourist visas.

[fruitcake]

[yingwenlaoshi]

My contract is up March 1st. Looks like my best bet is to renew on that date.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

...what if they change the regulations again...

Maybe the earlier I renew, the better. But it would be more reassuring to sign on exactly a year before my next contract is up. For severence and everything.

[sumfunu]

Get ready for a full-on cluster f... Why? A totally new policy, zero embassy co-op,etc.,etc. One good thing that may come from this is, the hogwon owners cabal may realize that they will lose some big time coin with the logistics of this Draconian policy and actually begin to HELP the waygeuks ( as the saying goes with hagwon owners " it's all about the Sejongs " ).

[Leslie Cheswyck]

^ Full on agreement there. The best thing Immi can do is give us enough time to work this shit out.

[cruisemonkey]

[elliemk]

I keep reading two different things on these threads about the new rules as applied to people already on an E-2.
1). They can change schools up to the March deadline without having to go back to their home country.
2). They cannot change schools up to the March deadline unless they have been at their current job for 8 or 9 months.
Can ANYONE clarify? I have a friend who needs to know!

[zizi]

I need to know too. Anyone.....?