Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hardupteacher]

An open question to ATEK:

Why haven�t you folks joined the KFTA - http://english.kfta.or.kr/? Or at least instructed the members that have this option to do so. For 10,000 won a month you can be included under the protection of the KFTA. This protection also includes free legal services
(download the brochure at http://english.kfta.or.kr/board/mem_board2/list.asp?bName=eng_mem_board&f_div=d.)

7. Main Activities
(1) Solidarity Reinforcement
From kindergartens to universities the KFTA represents 45% of the educators in Korea as members. The aim is to be a teacher organization representing all educators in Korea through a national educator rally, teachers day, and supportive programs for incumbent and prospective teachers.

(3) Protection of Educational Authority
The KFTA recognizes that the protection of educational authority is the basis of all educational activities. The KFTA manages a counseling center, defense counsel of lawyers, education authority protection fund, in order to establish the professional ethics of teachers.

(4) Educational Policy Research and Development
(5) Professional Development
(6) International Exchange
(7) Beneficial Services for Members

I would be mighty upset (enough to drag the KFTA in front of the Human Rights Tribunal of Korea) if they refused to accept your membership because you are not Korean or some other lame excuse (read the rules even student teachers at a university can join). You have to be dense to accept NO for answer. Wake up � get educated �get active �change things.

The SMOE programs hire teachers to teach in the public school system but exclude them from the professional organizations that can assist them. I think most people would agree it would be discriminatory not to allow non-Korean teachers to join the KFTA. How can the KFTA exclude only non-Korean teachers in the school system from joining?

As for non-Koreans being a only semi- professional or non licensed teachers, they have to pay the same taxes, get paid by the same employers, follow the same rules, work in the same building, attend the same meetings, teach the same students, and grade the same students; I see no differences except for a �you not one of us� argument. Put a boot up the posterior cheeks of the KFTA and get them working for you.

The KFTA belongs to many international organizations. If the KFTA does not help you; then other than filling a discrimination complaint, I think ATEK should make it point to contact any international education organization and protest their involvement with the KFTA as an organization that is clearly discriminatory.
Nothing causes a Korean to fold faster than ironing board than international humiliation. Accessing resources provides the tools to change things.

Question: ATEK why not join and force the KFTA to help you win battles that can be won?

If you refuse to do so, then in detail answer to this post why this is not possible.

Please avoid the �they say we can�t because we are not Korean argument.�

[lifeinkorea]

One look at their site and you can see the insanity in their agenda (also, I wonder if this is why GEPIK's system is just as faulty. They must be copying a losing method). Students are dropping out because they aren't being matched appropriately.

I don't know if I would want to be a member of a system that supports what I saw on that page. There needs to be a "foreign organization for foreigners" group established which meets the demands of the foreign teachers.

I don't see it as discrimination to expect people of one group to organize their needs collectively. That's what departments at schools, businesses, and the government are designed to address.

Their whole structure ( http://english.kfta.or.kr/structure_s.asp ) would have to be revamped to include foreign teacher representatives. I highly doubt this will ever happen.

[be11a]

Neither the KFTA nor the KTU represents teachers in hagwon, kindergartens or colleges. (I don't know about the KFTA, but the KTU does accept foreign members who teach in public schools.)

Government employees as a rule are forbidden from organizing. These organizations exist under special laws, and to attempt to include teachers outside the public sector would likely require appeals to the Constitutional Court. Neither the KFTA nor the KTU is interested, both groups feel that they have enough problems to deal with.

I expect that both organizations will publicly support ATEK as an organization specifically for teachers on visas, if ATEK 1) works to promote the rights of educators, and 2) develops professional standards in 'the industry.'