The government plans this month to ease the qualifications needed by native speakers to teach English. Instead of having to have graduated from university, teacher assistants will now only be required to have completed one year of their university course.
However, hagwon have to stick to current regulations. The discrepancies in English teaching positions for foreigners are expected to attract complaints from hagwon owners.
News like this is pretty big to be mentioned in passing in an article on something else. Either the writer didn’t pick up on its relevance or perhaps the info he is reporting from is ambiguous (as with most policy decisions concerning ESL in Korea). I’ll watch for what the Korean language versions say in more detail, if anything. But if that’s the case, 1 year’s worth of uni education=E2 eligibility, then that’s truly an ‘anything goes’ policy (with exception to the criminal rec, bloodwork and pee tests), as there is no way in hell that they’re going to be able to maintain a level of rigidness over all the variables and scenarios that come with this. At least asking for the degree and transcripts is somewhat definitive and verifiable.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
[...] has done a double take (and possibly a spit take) over a little line in an article claiming that Immigration is further relaxing E-2 visa requirements for public schools–as in needing only one year of college instead of a four-year college degree. Granted these [...]