Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rob85]

Hi. I'm looking at teaching opportunities in Korea, and have come across some travel advice on the UK Foreign Office website. It mentions frequent complaints from UK nationals teaching in Korea about breach of contract by their employers, withholding of salary, inadequate or no health insurance provided and a number of other areas. Similar advice is listed on the US State Department website. Obviously, this is quite disconcerting in looking for work in Korea, but I just wondered if these sort of problems are as common as the advice suggests? Has anyone experienced contract breaches, etc, and how can you avoid these problems, if possible? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

[spitfire]

yes

[lohengrin]

in short, read this board, a tremendous amount of people have experienced the kind of problems you talk about, hence the official warnings.

how to avoid it? stay at home...

[ED209]

Do your homework. Avoid hagwons(private academies). Public schools are more reliable but you'll still run into problems. Sometimes this can be over pay, but no way near as bad as a hagwon.

Try to talk to previous teachers who have left the school. Get their opinion and experiences.

Read this forum thoroughly. When you're finished(probably only take you two years to get through all the complaints) you'll be ready.

[janettekrankie]

Our boss is so-so and we get paid on time but we're not entirely happy with the bags of unpaid prep/test/report cards time and insinuations that if we're not the most perfect teachers to ever have existed in Korea then her school is going to close down tomorrow. I got to the stage where I was so keen to come I decided to just pack my bags and deal with the problems when I got here, and so far after many highs and lows I have few regrets. Really it's hit and miss, your best bet is to get approvals from current/past teachers and even then you can't be sure they're not bullshitting you so you'll come quickly and they can get away. Take the leap of faith or stay at home. There are loads of people here who can give you advice if you have problems and if all else fails, you can always quit.