60 unqualified native speaking instructors hired for English instruction

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 18: "Korean men have no excuse"
Part 19: "Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"
Part 20: 'Clamor' at foreigner English education site
Part 21: Foreign instructor: "I want to apologize"
Part 22: No putting brakes on 'Internet human rights violations'
Part 23: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 1
Part 24: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 2
Part 25: Don't Imagine
Part 26: 'Foreign instructor' takes third place
Part 27: Art From Outsider's Point of View
Part 28: U.S. Embassy warns Americans of threats near colleges
Part 29: Internet real name system debated
Part 30: Dirty Korean women who have brought shame to the country?
Part 31: Foreign instructor: "In two years I slept with 20 Korean women."
Part 32: Invasion of Privacy Degrades Korean Women Twice Over
Part 33: 60 unqualified native speaking instructors hired for English instruction

On January 26, 2005, Yonhap published the following story:

60 unqualified native speaking instructors hired for English instruction

(Suwon=Yonhap News) Reporter Kim In-yu = Police arrested 60 people, including unqualified instructors and a hagwon representative, for illegal English conversation instruction done through home visits, and for hiring unqualified native speaking instructors.

On the 26th, the foreign crimes division of the Gyeonggi area police arrested E Hagwon representative Mr. Lee (37) for contravening the Employment Security Act and the Immigration Act, and booked without detention the director, Mr. Son (33), for the same crime.

As well, 11 hagwon branch managers including a Mr. Son were booked without detention, and 8 foreign instructors including Ms. P (19) were deported. Meanwhile, the immigration office has been informed of a list of the other 39 instructors, who have been banned from leaving the country.

According to police, from May 15 last year to January 6 this year, hagwon representative Mr. Lee, who set up 32 hagwon branches around the country, brought around 60 Canadians, including Ms P, who were not qualified for conversation instruction (E-2 visa) into the country on tourist visas (H-1) and had them teach English conversation illegally to elementary school students and children via home visits.

The police investigation revealed that these unqualified foreign instructors taught in Seoul and the capital area teaching mostly elementary school students and children by visiting their homes and carrying out 50 minutes of English conversation instruction per week. As well, last August, some worked as regular and optional course instructors in 5 elementary schools in the Seoul, Incheon and Uijeongbu areas.

All of the instructors were Canadians between 19 and 21 years old and said they believed the words of job placement companies who said they could teach English on a tourist visa, and came to Korea. The Hagwon side said that the instructors, who graduated only from high school or junior college, deceived them regarding their age and their educational background, saying they were regular university graduates.

This was one of four articles on the topic; YTN, the Hanguk Ilbo, and Naeil Sinmun also reported on these arrests, with the latter publishing a column two days later titled "The only victims of poor English teachers are the children." It ends with this diagnosis:

Our reality is that, through the indifference of Education authorities and the negligence of schools, only the children are receiving a poor English education.

Interesting that the hagwon owners and job placement companies came in for more criticism. One wonders if these kind of arrests were not uncommon, and that the (slight) media attention paid to this one was due to the aftermath of the English Spectrum incident, or if the incident had led to more scrutiny of foreign teachers and hagwons which hired them illegally. I'd imagine it was more of the latter. I know in the months following the incident, there were not only more reported arrests, but police in and around subway or train stations also began to ask westerners for their ID (something previously restricted to people who looked southeast Asian).