Korean Job Discussion Forums

[liquidhotmagma]

The school I work at was previously pretty normal Hagwon schedule, Kindy in the morning and elementary aged students in the afternoon.

My school has decided to split the schools into 2 separate schools, 2 separate names and 2 different locations. They also split the teachers into those who will be teaching ONLY kindy and those that are teaching ONLY elementary age. The 2 schools are now completely separate and in totally different locations.

Now, I remember reading here before that it may be against the E-2 to each at an only kindy school. The search function doesn't seem to work well for me. Can anyone comment? I am really curious to know either way and if you have law to back it up that would be awesome as well.

Thanks

[miljeong]

Age doesn't matter. Registration matters. If it is registered with the 교육청 as an 어리니집 or 유치원, yes it is technically illegal for ANY English classes to even be HAD there (although the MoE actively ignores it and has regular meetings with the directors of said schools regarding making what they do just a little 'more legal'.)

As for a 영어/외국어전문 학원 registration, there is no law on the minimum age of students and thus if they register their 'kindergarten' as a hagwon, they will be able to legally hire and sponser English teachers.

Why even bother with a 유치원/어리니집 registration then, you might ask?

Until recently there were huge tax breaks for them, including a program to 'buy your building for you' from the government as a part of a movement to reform education in the country.

And from what my kindergarten owner friends tell me, it makes getting a 1 billion won loan possible (most kindergartens build their own buildings afterall). There are benefits to both, but the more registrations and surveying required, the more the government controls you.

That was my #1 reason for not going ahead and starting an "international school" in Korea. They will need to own 50% stock in it and oversee everything, and there is a legal limit to how many students can enroll. Pshh. Yea. Right. Business suicide anyone?

[crossmr]

if they've been split and your visa hasn't been updated to reflect the new name of the school you're working at, that could also be an issue. There have been people busted for working at the wrong branch of a school they had a visa for.

[miljeong]

[crossmr]