Korean Job Discussion Forums

[djg11002323]

The university I work for has proclaimed that there are new rules for hiring university teachers starting in September. The rules, as they were explained to me, are as follows:
1. Masters degree or higher.
2. Minimum two years university or college teaching experience.

I was told that they will be inspected by the local MOE to check for compliance. Has anyone else heard about this? I suspect it may have something to do with specific grants my school receives rather than an across the board Korean university rule.

[djg11002323]

Some additional information that may be pertinent: the positions at my uni are tenure track. They say the position of full-time lecturer has been eliminated, so new candidates must qualify to start as assistant professors.

[jammo]

Sounds good for the students!

Is this Uni by Uni or some sort of centralised decision?

[Malislamusrex]

ah I just realised that the 1st and 2nd poster are the same person.

[Swampfox10mm]

What?!? You mean a CELTA will no longer cause universities to bow down, kiss your tail, and throw top-dollar at you??? Seriously? Surely you must be joking?

[liveinkorea316]

That requirement has been around for a while. But not in the form of a RULE that a university must follow for all its foreign teachers but rather that as an incentive to achieve POINTS and therefore receive FUNDING from the MOE.

So of course the MOE will come around and check. Maybe they are finally saying they will actually come and pysically check compliance from this September. From what I understand this condition was put in a few years back and schools might have just submitted their information and been somehow audited.

Anyway, if ALL staff members at a uni MUST have masters degrees + 2 yrs exp I would be very surprised. I would put money that it is just a continuation of the previous policy.

Logically schools that can demand those conditions and want the funding will start to ask for ONLY MA applicants with experience. That is the goal of the MOE.

[Hootsmon]

My uni started doing that this year...it caused all kinds of problems with the current staff who didn't meet the requirements. It might be becoming more common because I hadn't heard of this until my university did it but now I've heard of a few others following suit.

[Paddycakes]

What about uni's cracking down on the pedigree of the MA?

Not all MA's are created equal, and a lot of those distance ed MA's done over the internet that require no thesis or in class time are in my view a bit sketchy.

I heard Taiwan was clamping down on those types of MA's.

Thing is, though, if you ban those types of MA's, you're basically going to have to can 90 plus percent of all the ESL teachers in the uni system in Korea.

[slothrop]

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[liveinkorea316]

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[Weigookin74]

[Weigookin74]

[djg11002323]

Weigookin74 you are exactly on point with your comment. The reality of the situation is Korean universities want top notch candidates for bottom notch pay. This is why I feel these standards could never be implemented across the board. If they do, it certainly would not last long once they realize their English departments have no teachers. This would be especially true if they started cracking down on non-traditional masters and Phd's. In my department only two of us out of eight meet both the masters and experience requirements.

[slothrop]

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[12ax7]

It's definitely not a government requirement, nor will it ever be.

Bill Gates, for example, wouldn't be able to teach a business or computer class because he never graduated.