Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education said Thursday it plans to cut the number of foreign English teacher by 200 or 8.8 percent to 2,056 for next year. Currently, a total of 2,256 native English speakers are working at 2,032 schools in the province.
The provincial education office said it is also considering cutting the number of native teachers in phases in the years to come.
Instead, the education office will increase the number of Korean English conversation teachers, who speak only in English during class, up to 1,100 from current 600.
“We plan to gradually reduce foreign teachers and replace them with Korean English conversation teachers,” said an official from the provincial office.
She said the policy change reflects higher costs to hire native speakers, including accommodations and airplane tickets for the foreigners.
. . .
Some education offices including Gangwon Province are joining in the move with Gyeonggi, while others in Daegue (sic), North Gyeongsang and Ulsan plan to hire more native English speakers.
In case of Seoul, the education authorities are trying to maintain the current number of foreign English teachers, approximately 1,000.
On Tuesday Gusts of Popular Feeling shared some recent Korean-language articles on the topic as well, with information mirrored in Thursday's English-language piece. A short excerpt, starting with talk about those Korean English "lecturers" said to be replacing us, that brings up a good point:
A November 25 Donga Ilbo article elaborates further on the latter instructors, saying that Gyeonggi-do began selecting Korean English conversation specialist instructors in June 2009, and there are currently around 650 working in schools, with plans to raise the number to 1000 next year.
It also notes that as the plan to reduce native teachers has become known to students' parents, there has been resistance due to fears of private education costs rising. According to parent Jeong Suk-hee, (39, Bundang): "Among parents there has been talk that Korean English conversation specialist instructors lag behind native speaking instructors," and, "If there isn’t much difference in the supporting budgets, we want native speaking teachers to be placed [in schools]."
The Times ran one generic photo of students talking with a native speaker English teacher, though if we're just going to decorate, I always enjoyed this one of a teacher
4 comments:
As opposed to just hiring fewer new people, I hope when they reduce the number they choose instead to not resign the contracts of teachers that suck at their jobs.
I agree with TWA, but you know with an office of education like this, they'll most likely hire people with no experience so they don't have to pay them as much.
That is a good picture.
You know, this is retarded, I was asked to resign my contract in November, I made the decision to stay at my school and I find out today that they are cutting the budget and that they dont have money for a native English teacher next semester. My students love me, I plan to teach in Korea a long time but Gyeonggi-do this is some crap. Cut the bad teachers the people who don't wanna be here, not the people who plan to live the rest of their life here. I am appalled that I have to find another job by next month, when I have done nothing but do my job and do it well.
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