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Monday, February 14, 2011

Institutes Asked to Hire Eligible Foreign Teachers

The French foreign language teacher scandal of 1984

Prelude 1: The 1983 Law "Limiting Aliens' Residence Period" and banning "unqualified" foreigners from working.

Part 1: Le Monde and what came before
Part 2: Korea is "Ali Baba's" Cave
Part 3: Seoul Should not be a Workplace for Parisians
Part 4: In private foreign language classes, there are a lot of ‘fraud teachers’
Part 5: Jibberish
Part 6: 'I Want to Strike it Rich in Seoul Too' - Continuous Job Inquiries by the French
Part 7: Foreigners Enjoy Better Life With Mother Tongues
Part 8: Foreigners and Foreign Languages
Part 9: Sickening Face

Part 10: Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Part 11: The First Sanctions on Foreigners Working Illegally
Part 12: All Private Lessons by Foreigners Prohibited
Part 13: Institutes Asked to Hire Eligible Foreign Teachers
Part 14: "Seoul Wind"
Part 15: Foreign Language Teacher Shortage
Part 16: Troublemaking vagabond foreigner story finally airs

Part 13: Institutes Asked to Hire Eligible Foreign Teachers

On September 22, the Korea Times published the following article. For more information about the bill, see part 13.


Some interesting figures there: Of "10,000 learning institutions across the nation," 202 institutes specialized in foreign languages, with 93 of those being in Seoul. It's uncertain what these terms mean, however, considering the Joongang Ilbo had earlier reported that
In Seoul there are around 70 foreign language official institutes, and over 500 private foreign language schools. This present situation of the foreign language craze and especially the rapidly-multiplying foreign language institutes is due to a change in the existing unlicensed school report system in 1980, which led to a sudden increase in the number of schools.
It's uncertain which statistics are correct, or what the difference is between an 'official institute' and a private one. As for this -
Foreigners eligible to teach at private institutes should have at least a junior college education even if they hold valid employment visas.
- the article fails to mention that a new visa had been put in place. I'm not sure what 'junior college education' means, but in 2001 I had coworkers who had 2 year college degrees with a TESOL certificate, which was valid until 2001 or 2002, when the rules changed.

2 comments:

  1. In 1984 one paper said 202 institutes specialized in foreign languages while another said there were 70 official institutes with 500 private hagwons, it looks like they couldn’t count then and more proof of it is below when you pointed out…
    “It's uncertain which statistics are correct,...”

    Things have NOT changed(Koreans unable to count and keep accurate/correct English teacher statistics) from 1984 until today. I say they stop learning English until they learn to count.

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  2. Junior college, just means a 2-year college (diploma, not BA).

    The rules were later changed to not accept anything less than a 4-year university BA, but that had to be further refined when they discovered many (most) British BAs were three years.

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