Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I'm so tired of this...

40% of public school Native English speaking teachers in Korea are "unqualified."  As Matt points out, if Koreans are concerned with this, why do they not require teachers to have some sort of qualification such as a Teacher Certification from their home country, or a Celta?  But, this is Korea, and in general, Koreans would much rather hire the most handsome blond/blue-eyed 21 year old rather than a slightly overweight 60 year-old with greying hair and 45 years of teaching experience.  You can't have it all I guess.

1 comment:

Amanda said...

Hi Jackie:

It is indeed getting old.

Instead of bemoaning the number of unqualified foreign teachers, why don’t the media take the Ministry of Ed to task for its lack of oversight? The MOE could introduce a system of accreditation for all hakwons. Why don’t the public demand better standards and put their money where their mouth is (or in this case only enroll their kids at schools with licensed teachers).

Alas, I think that is asking too much. One only needs to review the “quality journalism” found in the English newspapers here (the daily KT headlines would be laughable if they weren’t so pathetic) to know that a critical discussion of hakwon hiring standards & accountability is unlikely. Until that day comes, we will continue to hear about the 40%...