This news is a few weeks stale by now, but I like mulling over the ever-evolving visa process for teaching english in Korea. It’s evolved so much of late that I haven’t been bothered to update the relevant ESL pages on the wiki. Yeah, I’ll get around to it. If I can handle the redundancy of writing restaurant articles for places that will likely change over in a year, then I should be able to update evolving E2 content.

Anyways, looks like after all the belt-tightening in the aftermath of 변태-gate, and the ensuing backlash from employers complaining about teacherless classrooms, the government is making caveat after caveat to make the policies more realistic. The big beef seems to be about finding teachers to come teach in rural schools. So one idea that is being floated is to allow teachers who possess 2-year diplomas to be eligible for an E2. I don’t see why not, given that the media concern is obviously more about whether we have aids or not (see: required medical and blood tests) and if we are child molestors (see: criminal record checks), rather than anything to do with actually teaching, per se.

I’ve been out of the recruitment racket for a few years, but when I was recruiting and staring at resumes all day, I seldom would see many emails from people saying ‘I only have a 2 year diploma, is there any chance..blah-blah, etc…?’ I don’t see the relaxation of this signalling any opening of the floodgates of available teachers.

But regardless, looks like there is at least one government-approved effort to allow for 2-year diploma holders to come teach for 6 months, or even if you are diploma-less, but have finished 2 years out of a 4 year degree.

Watch for more of my half-assed commentary on Korea’s half-assed efforts to regulate/de-regulate its half-assed visa system.