Gyeonggi-do to implement pilot program for native speaker 'telelectures'

On August 10, Yonhap published the following article:

'Telelectures by foreigners' introduced in 50 schools in Gyeonggi-do

From September until next February 50 elementary, middle and high schools in Gyeonggi-do will operate a pilot project in which native speakers living overseas will hold live 'telelectures.'

On the 10th the Gyeonggi office of education said, "To bridge the gap in English education we plan to have native speaker telelectures at 50 schools during second semester."

The telelectures will be held by native speakers living overseas in places like the US or Australia whose lecture will be linked in real time. Students will be able to talk to the native speaking instructors.

Schools will sign contracts with specialized companies for the video lectures.

Each school will make a request to the company for classes which need telelessons, and some schools will also have video lessons for their after school programs.

The provincial office of education will decide whether to continue and expand the use of telelectures after analyzing the results of the pilot program.

The provincial office of education expect that the telelectures will help bridge the English education gap for students in areas where it's difficult to hire native speaking teachers.

Nice to see Yonhap simply parroting a Gyeonggi provincial office of education (GPOE) press release. Had a minimum of research been done, it might have been noticed that three weeks ago budget cuts forced the GPOE to institute a hiring freeze on native speaking teachers in the province (from October to February - practically the same period this pilot program is taking place) and threatened the jobs of those who have not yet finished their contracts (though the GPOE denies this). It will be interesting to see if this is just a stopgap measure to deal with the cuts or if it will be implemented on a wider scale in the future.