Your friendly neighborhood hagwon owner is warning you — the foreign teacher — that private tutoring is a crime and that you are being watched:
Residents of Daejeon are being bombarded with some 200 banners on the side of school busses and hung on walls carrying the stark warning: “You are being watched.”
Foreign teachers are threatened with fines, blacklisting and deportation if they are caught teaching private English lessons, something not allowed under their E-2 visa status. The Daejeon Foreign Language School Association is offering rewards of up to 500,000 won for information leading to the apprehension of teachers breaking the terms of their visa.
“This is an opportunity for them to stop,” said Charles, the gentleman whose telephone number was displayed on the banners, “we wanted to warn them before they are caught.”
Charles said they decided to take this rather dramatic action because “the situation was getting out of control.” He said the main problem wasn’t so much the legal E-2 teachers teaching private classes, but the scores of foreigners with only a tourist visa who were teaching illegally.
I love the English hagwon industry (in which I spent five years, I’m none too proud to admit*) — between the dishonest, illegal blacklist-posting recruiters, thieving racist hagwon owners and skirt-chasing (not that there’s anything wrong with that), whinging, drug-using teachers, what’s there not to like?
According to one (presumably) a teacher in the area, the buses say:
“All Foreigners are being watched for private teaching and if reported you will be deported and fined. Also there is a 500,000 Won reward for turning in the foreigner along with the Korean household and the Korean who may have introduced them”. It also goes on to say that “The foreigners are not “qualified teachers” and that in hiring a private teacher you run the risk of something bad going wrong with your kid and/or apartment”. Three phone numbers are included: Immigration, the Police, and the Hagwon Association.
Lovely. I guess the question is, who the hell is watching the hagwon owners?
(HT to reader)
UPDATE: The ESL Geek has blogged all about this — with images. The line I found most humorous was on one of the Korean banners (encouraging tipsters to report tutoring foreigners), in which it reads that “Proper education for your children is YOUR responsibility” [emphasis mine] — nothing quite as rich as a bunch of hagwon owners (!) issuing exhortations about educational responsibility.
*I have to say, though, that I worked for two good bosses. This qualification in no way lessens my slacker status, however.
23 Comments
Here is a picture of one of the buses Robert. You can put this in the article if you want and delete this comment.
I will file this in the big “who cares” category. Those that teach on the side illegally are simply following the age old risk vs. reward principle. In Korea, however, there is (was?) very little risk.
If you work outside the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences.
The industry needs a giant enema and this campaign (not surprisingly) is not the answer. As Mr. Marmot alluded to, the system needs a cleansing from the top down.
what about private teaching of math?
Did all private teaching gradually become illegal in Korea?
What is this, some sort of bogus law to protect hagwon owners and shield them from healthy competition?
this crap in Daejeon might get popular, then who knows what’s to follow. perhaps we’ll begin seeing signs in a few bars, intimidating the locals from flirting outside their race or worse ones which encourage the googling of English Teachers by name—imagine for a modest fee (less than an average private lesson!) you could have any foreigner investigated in their home country.
sooo Goat, do you like witch hunts?
remember a lot of people also filed it in “the big ‘who cares’ category” when a certain group of people got to wear yellow stars on their clothes.
Wow - foobat brought in the Nazis in four!
This issue is about the same thing it always is with Koreans…the almighty “Won”. The fact is based on existing demographics there just aren’t enough kids anymore to support the number of Koreans aspiring to attain the Kangnam Lifestyle hustling English.
Many institutes have been hanging on by a thread for a long time, including the one I work for. Having cut every corner possible to survive, they are currently in the process of going out of business one kid at a time. Koreans always require a scapegoat to blame their problems on and they are now lashing out at the easiest target…English instructors. As the English language industry and the Korean economy as a whole continue to remain stagnant, there will certainly be more of this to come.
foobat,
Start here:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/
Read a little. Come back later.
hagwon owner/director, nazi, same thing 85% of the time …
but hagwon associations, gestopo. all this informing and turning in the foreigner and the “Korean household” (i.e. your neighbor) will get out of hand … if it takes.
I could see turning in North Korean spies for a reward, but English teachers and their enablers? Typical nanny state thinking. The market has come up with a solution to the poor educational system and the government does all it can to shut it down. Meanwhile, the educational system continues to plug along at its usual mediocre pace, controlled by the KJI-loving teachers’ union. Is this similar to the useless War on Drugs that ends up throwing a bunch of two bit dealers in the can while the big fish go on their merry way raking in millions?
Blogged about this last Friday with pictures.
I think the problem goes deeper than just money. You moonlighters are corn-holing the girls, aren’t you? The fee is not the issue, you guys are getting all the young-gea….
I find this particularly interesting since the tax office has a banner ad encouraging you to ‘Ensure’ you taxes are being paid to the tax office. Yes it is your responsability to watch you hagwon owner isn’t stealing from the government.
here’s the link:
http://www.nta.go.kr/eng/menu/.....ce_pop.htm
It is just another typical witch hunt that that comes and goes every year.
hagwon owner/director, nazi, same thing 85% of the time …
but hagwon associations, gestopo. all this informing and turning in the foreigner and the “Korean household” (i.e. your neighbor) will get out of hand … if it takes.
foobat, the Gestapo aren’t ‘getting out of hand’, at least not any more. But if you think they are, just spank them on their bottoms and send them on their way.
Now, the problem’s with the Go-stopo…
In related (?) news, Ye Olde Chosun (aside to Robert: great moniker!) informs us that the good ol’ blacklist is alive and well.
The article opens with this “astonishing” “revelation”:
Then we’re treated to a horror story about Hector the Infector, who—Deo gratias!—has been blacklisted by the intrepid lot at the KFTRA.
Is the timing of these two articles coincidence, or is it open season on English teachers (again)?
It’s seasonal. Just like the usual crack downs on hookers, traffic light runners, and the like. Few people will give a shit once it starts pissing down and the weather becomes unbearably hot. Almost any day now, I predict.
As far as I remember, it seems that June is around the normal time for a crackdown, sometimes lasting into July so they can catch some teachers teaching illegally at the camps. Not sure if many get nabbed during winter camps, or are there many winter camps?
There are camps all year round. And regarding the cornholing of the natives comment: all outlaws are sexy. Imagine being a waegookin with a flair for flouting the finer points of the law. Then imagine being a waegookin who tries to bolster his nonsense with alliteration, and then you can empathize with lying codfish.
More stupidity from the Korean gov’t. Korea should go the opposite way and legalize private tutoring, regulate it and ensure that tutors have proper credentials…ain’t never gonna happen though.
#17 McGenghis. Let me guess…. English teacher?
“skirt-chasing (not that there’s anything wrong with that)”
What crap quality of a person to say being qualified to live in a foreign country.
Ut videam,
The article you linked also reminds us of canard about foreigners being the source of disease–in this case, AIDS.
reminds us of the old…sorry
20 - What an amazing piece of yellow journalism, eh? I’m still shaking my head in wonderment at that first figure:
In other news, about 49% of the population are condemned after they were found to have committed serial rape or forgot to put the toilet seat down after taking a leak.
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