Korean Job Discussion Forums

[AussieGav]

I work in a GEPIK Middle School and it looks like this semester I may go over the 22 classes covered under the contract. I will have 21 or 22 regular classes, two or three after school classes (drama club and newspaper club) and five Englishee Zone sessions (held during lunchtime).

The questions I have are:

Are all of these, in excess of 22, classified as overtime classes?
How is record kept and who keeps it?

Any other general information about this would be greatly appreciated.

[fromtheuk]

Anything over 22 hours counts as overtime. My co-teacher keeps a record of how many OT hours I work. Every so often, she asks me to sign a paper which confirms the OT hours worked, then eventually you get paid for them.

After you build up a certain number of OT hours, they'll pay you for them.

[nomad-ish]

^ not only that, but it includes any hours that you teach outside your 8 working hours a day.

[sobriquet]

Yup

I used to get an hours overtime for starting at 8:15 rather than 8:30.

That was when the school padded out my timetable with phantom teachers classes to keep the POE off their back

[Otherside]

Yup. Anything in excess of 22 classes a week is overtime.

By your calculations, you will be teaching 28-30 classes a week. That's 6-8 hours of overtime a week.

But beware!!! Say you have 6 classes on a monday and one of the following happens:
1. Public/school Holiday.
2. Sports day etc. so classes are cancelled.

BOOM. You've just lost your OT for the week.

You've been around a bit, so you'll know how often classes are cancelled, and everytime a class is cancelled (usually at the last minute) it costs you overtime.

For this reason, I'm very wary of working overtime. On average, 2 weeks a month I have classes cancelled, and thus working "overtime" often equates to working harder for less. (or technically the same)

[sobriquet]

[Otherside]

sobriquet, so you are telling me that on the Chuseok weekend (or another similar occasion, where 3 days or so of school are cancelled) you'll still get paid your 3,4,5,6 or 10 hours of overtime even though you only taught 10 classes the whole week?

[sobriquet]

[alex83]

Also, for those hours outside your 8 official hours, it's your choice to work.
So, negotiate an hourly rate with them that you're happy with (if you want to do it at all!)

[ardis]