Korean Job Discussion Forums

[princess]

I find it strange how it seems these days many schools are ready to hire someone and fly them over in a few days. So of course, you'll be working with no visa=illegal. I've had this happen 3 times already. There must be a lot of people pulling runners these days or something.

[ttompatz]

[Jeonnam Jinx]

I would like to think that this is a continuing trend in which teachers and potential teachers are refusing to accept sub-standard treatment from their "bosses."

I would like to give my compliments and appreciation to all the posters on these boards who relate their experiences (both good and bad), advise others, critique contracts, and basically serve as a great source of information for the rest of the ESL/EFL community.

ESL cafe's posters are no doubt responsible, in part, for more and more teachers fighting for better working conditions, hours, pay, and contracts. You provide a good service and if it means more and more teachers are moving on to better schools or not accepting what they believe to be adequate benefits, then I applaud you! (Maybe I should take my own advice)

The more you know....

[passport220]

I think it has to do with the time of year. The public schools just hired a fresh batch of teachers (like me). Teachers who have the basic qualifications and the willingness to teach in Korea have been pulled off the market by the public schools.

[lastat06513]

In some way, the words " told you so" is not enough to speak about the situation these days.

When the government and immigration started cracking down on people coming over to teacher, I knew there would be some kind of shortage.
Now several things will happen;

1. The public school vacancies will be all full in a matter of years and then there will be a shortage of good jobs for people to find, forcing people to take hogwon jobs. Or if they don't take it, then alot of people would just go to China or Japan or even Taiwan to teach. Thus, creating a shortage in teachers in Korea.

2. (Scary scenerio) That they might start limiting the time a person can work at public schools (like they do with JETT program, which is only 1 or 2 extensions). So you might start to see a steady rotation of people in and out of the public school and even university system to make room for fresh and new ideas, or better yet "fresh meat"


Again, just because there might be a better control of who gets a visa, it doesn't mean that conditions at the hogwons would get better. You might even see a decrease in benefits in the public school side as well as they know there might be an endless stream of people willing to work no matter what conditions are offered as long as they think they are getting out of the hogwon system.

[overq64]

I heard unemployment in Canada was lower than for many years.

This has got to make a difference given the number of entry level Canadians we see over here...


Koreans are pretty dim when it comes to adapting to change. They are not dumb in general of course - but their culture is resistant to change and so when they keep having trouble recruiting they will not adapt - but merely persist...

the point above about offering any incentive to re-sign is very valid.

They also lack any ability to see korea through our eyes - which leads to a lot of other problems too.

In many ways - less meat for the hogwan grinder is good for us and good for korea....teh more of these 'schools' taht die off the better.

[inkoreaforgood]

[Hater Depot]

When I worked in a public school I was told 3 years max. Of course, I only stayed 1 year so who knows if it would have been enforced.

Anyway, yeah, it's not exactly rocket science to think of a lot of things Koreans could do to get better teachers and better performance out of the ones already here. They're not going to do any of them, period. The Metropolitican recently put up some posts with excellent illustrations of that fact.