A lawmaker proposed bills to strengthen the screening of foreign English teachers in Korea, Tuesday.
Rep. Choi Young-hee of the main opposition Democratic Party submitted the bills obliging foreign English teachers to present criminal record and health check documents, including HIV-AIDS tests, before they are hired at public or private schools.
Under immigration regulations, applicants for an E-2 English teaching visa have been required to submit those documents since December 2007.
``E-2 visa holders, once caught for taking drugs or sexually harassing children, were often found to be rehired at another school or hagwon,'' said Yeo Jun-sung, an aide for Rep. Choi. ``The proposed bills are to remove these loopholes from the current immigration law.''
Care to provide any evidence for that claim? Because if you refer to the statistics found in the NHRCK Report, you'll see that, well, there is none. You will see, though, that there were 13 foreign teachers from the "Big 7" countries arrested for drug offenses in 2008, and 34 arrested for "sex crimes," two numbers certainly not large enough to allow the word "often." Shithead. But I do wonder who has his ear, considering we heard similar talk last May from the Korea Association of Foreign Language Academies:
The association said the Korea Immigration Service (KIS) does not retain data on foreign nationals who have had work experience here. ``No hagwon owners want to work with unqualified foreigners. Most hagwon employers terminate contracts of unacceptable foreigners, those guilty of sexual harassment or taking drugs,'' general director Choi Chang-jin said.
``However, many of these `blacklisted' foreigners return and teach English at other hagwon. I have seen a foreigner, who was expelled on drug charges, return here within three days. This is because the government does not keep records on these foreigners,'' Choi said.
19 comments:
We have always heard the term "unqualified". I know that 10 years ago that meant someone who finished their university degree and taught adults. But with the boom on teaching kids and the people screaming about "unqualified" teachers, what does "unqualified" mean?
No "foreigner" wants to work with unqualified Koreans either.
If a teacher was expelled and back in the country in three days at another academy they couldn't have had a visa. There is no way they could have all the paperwork done, and if they had drugs- they would be in jail. Perhaps there was suspicion, but it couldn't have been a real conviction.
You know what, I know a Korean who has done X. I know another one who has done Y. We need new laws to prevent Koreans from doing X and Y. See how easy that was.
"E-2 visa holders, once caught for taking drugs or sexually harassing children, were often found to be rehired at another school or hagwon,"
I hate 'unqualified' statements like this...
The debate is always about "unqualified" teachers. But it is never said what it really means.
Teachers with criminal histories, teachers with some sort of medical problem? It seems that people use the term to end the discussion. Yet how is the person "unqualified"? If they cannot say the exact reason, then there is no reason at all. They just assume that "unqualified" is the final answer and everyone knows what it means.
In Ulsan, "unqualified" means fat, wearing indecent clothes, or refusing to teach voluntary classes.
외국인 아웃!
'The debate is always about 'unqualified' teachers. But it is never said what it really means."
If unethical means "a foreigner who is interested in a Korean woman" -- and I suggest it does -- then unqualified must mean "a foreigner who is interested in taking drugs (other than soju) or sexually harassing children" -- though what "sexually harassing children" means, I can only guess.
"My Guess"; Act 1, Scene 1
A Classroom in Korea
Unqualified Foreigner Teacher to Korean Child: "Go out with me, or I'll give you a failing grade."
Korean Child to Unqualified Foreigner Teacher: "Engrishee, me, no." [Translation from the Konglish: "I don't understand a word of what you just said. But you have no grading or discipline power over me or anyone else here. So piss off, Grandpa."]
Meanwhile, in another part of the same classroom, a completely ethical and qualified Korean male teacher is punching a male student with a closed fist in the face, having already struck an obviously ill female student as hard as he can in the back, twice, causing gasps even from other Korean kids long accustomed to such abuse.
[sigh]
Fuck them, if they really push us too far then they will have trouble getting anyone to come to this place.
'Unqualified' seems to be Konglish.
WOW!
Benjamin is here.
Long time no hear since ELS.
Looks like you have been busy on the blogs and in the news.
But if the government does not define the terms that they use, then there will be a lot speculation and a lot of interpretation by every person who uses it. Thus there is a lot of ambiguity and when it comes to government policy or business contracts, ambiguity causes more problems. If the government cannot define the term, then they cannot use it. Thus that government policy is flawed and can be abused by those who use it. It can be abused by a case by case situation. They use the term to make their argument logical and final which isn't at all. If they cannot define the term then they cannot use it.
"E-2 visa holders, once caught for taking drugs or sexually harassing children, were often found to be rehired at another school or hagwon,'' said Yeo Jun-sung, an aide for Rep. Choi. "The proposed bills are to remove these loopholes from the current immigration law.''
Since its Kang at the keyboard again, I'd seriously doubt if any of these statements were even made.
What we have here is an incredibly damning public admission of incompetence. It is saying: 1) drug abusing, sexual predator teachers are arrested and then released back into society to prey on your children, 2) the E-2 policy is ineffective, 3) but at least we were right all along about those foreigners. We may have had to sacrifice a few kids to prove our point, but we did it.
"I have seen a foreigner, who was expelled on drug charges, return here within three days.'' Choi said.
What exactly is being said here? A government officer is allowing known criminals to work in Korea?
It's ridiculous.
[-earlier post redacted There have been several bills recently introduced by various members of the national assembly. I'll translate and post them soon. ]
ton180 - yes, those were the days! i miss 'em.
What it seems is that even though the bills were never passed, immigration put them as policy.
Does immigration have the legal authority to do that? Can a branch of the government make their own policy without the authorization of the central government and then enforce them as law?
And since this is "policy" is it mandatory to follow them? This is why I asked about defining "unqualified". If a person uses this and cannot define it, then it is open to interpretation from everyone and there will be not clear cut definition. This is a problem for governments and businesses. If the terms are not clear, then there will be problems due to the interpretation. Can the government write an ambiguous law and use it any time they want to?
If it is even slightly true that disqualified "teachers" are coming back to Korea to teach after being caught with drugs or committing other crimes, it begs to ask: "Why are they coming back here?"
What does it say about the so-called teacher? Is he or she that big a loser that he cannot get work back in his home country?
What does it say about Korea? Are they SO desperate to get warm bodies that can utter native English that they will allow losers to teach their children? Are they willing to look the other way and then later, when caught looking the other way, make themselves look damned foolish?
I think the story is utterly ridiculous. It is amazing that such a small group of people get maligned so much as Native English teachers. It is amazing that it can take one isolated incident brand an entire class as the same as that lone violator by some ignorant and mean-spirited people.
We need to be better than those people. We should not be tempted to class all Koreans as ignorant and bigoted. We need to concentrate our attacks on those few who rightly deserve our ire.
Wow, 민주당 must be trying hard to make a bad impression with sensible people if they resort to publicly making up stuff to discredit your demographic because they can't find any real crimes with it.
I can't say whether anybody will read it or even react to it, but if you can borrow somebody's 주민등록번호, you are free to go to Rep. Choi's “free board” and tell him what's wrong with the bill he submitted and with his aide's justification for it.
You can also leave a short “응원 message”, give him a phone call (02-784-2061) or write him a letter.
Better yet, since he won't give a rat's ass about what you drug-afflicted pervert barbarians think about his abusive fearmongering, try to get Koreans (= potential voters) to complain: friends, parents of children who might soon lose their disappointed teachers, etc.
Most importantly, stay civil, as anything else would just reinforce the bad image with which he is trying to smear ESL teachers!
(Sorry for any mistakes, I neither teach nor natively speak English.)
Sorry, I just noticed Rep. Choi Young-hee is a woman, but I don't think there is a way i can correct “he” and “his” to “she” and “her” in my previous post, is there?
Interesting to see you guys have the same outrage as me! I am a Korean E-2 visa holder living in the U.S. I found this posting while googling "E-2" since I am not allowed to get an internship as a graduate school student because they say I may deprive American citizens of their job opportunity. Hello? I just want to take a graduate course that happens to have a name of "Internship."
What you guys are feeling now is exactly what I am feeling now.
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