Or a native speaker in every school. So promises UNDP presidential candidate Chung Dong-young, who reportedly pledged to put native English speakers in every school as a way of decreasing private tutoring fees.
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Doesn’t the Ministry of Education already have a program in place that aims at doing that?
Well, it does sound somewhat more realistic than Lee Myung-bak’s delusional canal project - probably a little cheaper too - and it sounds like a good idea. However, I would guess that Chung’s promise is a little short on details. (For example, would all of these new teachers be required to possess any qualifications/certification beyond being a native speaker with a non-forged degree and a pulse? Where would the money come from? How would Korean teachers of English feel about it in terms of job competition/security?)
It also probably wouldn’t put much of a dent in the private tutoring market. Raising Korean students’ English language ability - or, to be more accurate, test scores - won’t eliminate the desire of parents for their kid to outperform his/her peers for that precious spot at SNU, Yonsei, KAIST, etc. What would change other than having to win in a division that has been made for competitive?
Most Koreans I talk to will lament the state of the country’s education or health system, but very few are interested in paying higher taxes to realize such improvements. Most seem more inclined to instead take that money and put it into private lessons or whatever for their kid(s). This is one area where Chung and a lot of the 386 crew mysteriously seem to misread their own people.
Global, you’re on the money. Regarding your third point, taxes, I don’t see how raising taxes would improve education overall, except by hiring more teachers and making class sizes smaller. The US spends a lot of money providing alternative instruction during school hours and additional instruction after school to special ed, low SES, and English language learners. Despite all this warm and fuzzy talk about diversity in Korea, very, very few schools have to cope with children who are not fully proficient in Korean. Likewise, Korean schools “solve” the problem of SPED by herding those students into separate schools. The number of Korean students with serious, serious emotional or behavioral difficulties is probably much, much lower than in US schools.
Sonagi, raising taxes would also permit schools to upgrade their facilities - better heating and AC, for example - but I agree that the main improvements would be realized though having more teachers and smaller class sizes.
Another thing that came to mind is that there is clearly a perception among many students and parents in Korea that the public system is not just inadequate in itself, but possibly inferior to the shadow system of institutes, at least in terms of being able to get test score results for their “customers.” Not only would the public system have to improve a great deal to overcome this image, but Koreans’ views on the purposes/objectives of education would also have to change.
Well, we’ve heard that idea before, and Koreans I’ve talked to site that as the biggest benefit of having native speakers in the public schools. However, most concede that a lot of the academic heavy lifting is done at the hagwon.
He gave his speech in Jeollanam-do, where I’ve lived and worked for the past 14 months or so. I’ve seen conflicting agendas in place there. Its true they’ve put more foreign teachers in more schools over the past year or two, and according to stats for Jeollanam-do I saw last spring they plan to double the number of foreign teachers in public schools each year for the next few years (if that sentence makes sense). However, what they also have in place are “English Towns” in every city and county, and what’s happening, at least where I was last year, is that they’re taking native speakers out of the public schools and putting them into these English Towns, and having each class in each school visit these Towns once or twice a semester. Its more efficient, I’ll grant, for rural areas to bus the students to an English Town than to try to move a foreign teacher to a different school a day (which is often impossible in rural areas unless the teacher has a car). These English Towns have just been built over the last year or two (and others are set to open this year or next), so I wonder what he plans to do about them. His plan for NSs in every classroom is easy enough to carry out in bigger cities like Gwangju, but I’ll be curious what he has plans for other areas in the province, especially since this English Town movement conflicts with the current co-teaching curriculum in place.
“better heating and AC, for example”
gvi, I had to laugh when I read that. It seems that many schools, including very high priced ones continue to want to skimp on such things. At my current school, they bend over backwards to cater to the students (because the tuition fees are very high and paid for by the companies), but can’t seem to turn the heat or air con on when needed, so I have students sitting in class nearly shivering. And they wonder why they get complaints. It was the same at my university before. No heat until December. All the freshmen huddled in their winter coats. You could have native speakers all over the place, but how can anyone learn anything in such conditions?
Yep.
Lots more money (and intelligent use of it) or the schools is what they need to improve the critical education crisis — the basics: hiring more teachers and making class sizes smaller, and higher salaries (so that the best teachers stop transferring to hagwons). Simple as that, put your cash where your Confucian mouth is… Higher salaries for tenure-track professors would be a great idea too
The comments also remind me of the article on Suh Nam-pyo, the current head of KAIST and his drive to put KAIST on top and reduce the loss of graduates to overseas institutions. Suh’s sort of comprehensive thought, regarding how to promote and develop KAIST, along with the technological welfare of the country, is more progressive than simply installing “native-speakers” inside of schools.
Chung’s ideal is impractical and naive.
I just wanted to add that somebody ought to be thinking about curriculum. With a lot of hoopla and great expense they bring foreign teachers in, but there is often no curriculum in place, and for middle and high schools there is not a country-wide curriculum. Sometimes being told “do what youwant” is nice, but hearing that from a coteacher or principal reveals a lack of commitment to NSs’ classes, in my opinion.
Smee, you are correct. Curriculum is another detail that I suspect Chung’s plan does not include. Being told to “do what you want”, while perhaps indicative of a lack of professionalism on the part of a principal or coteacher, is at least better than being forced to teach something useless and/or teach in a completely ineffective way.
At the University that employed me for two years, the building where I taught and lived in had heat turned on like crazy during office hours — and would turn off heat both in classrooms and flats after the last class. Temps in our lodgings in January/February would dip below 0°C, but during the day they could reach 30°C in admin offices…
Ouch, below 0C in the lodgings? My university’s rationale was to save money, but of course, with the heat off, every employee had an electric heater hidden under their desk, despite a university-wide order not to use them. I’m sure they mustn’t have been too happy to suddenly see their electricity bills skyrocket while they saved a few bucks on heating fuel. Dda, did you have an electric heater in your apartment? We had a nice big one in the foreign teacher’s room. Be damned if I was going to sit in there all day between classes shivering while I marked quizes.
This thread brings back memories of firing up the office oil heater on cold winter mornings in Korea. The trick was tossing down the match when there was just enough oil to ignite but not too much, snuffing out the flame.
The Chinese coastal city where I lived had a local ordinance that all school classrooms had to have windows facing south to take advantage of solar heat. Many private homes and apartment buildings were equipped with small solar heaters on the roof. Once oil passes $100 a barrel, maybe more people will start doing that here.
BTW, Sanshinseon, did you know that South Korean teachers are among those earning the highest salaries relative to average wages in an international comparison?
http://www.futureofchildren.or....._id=470140
One reason why Korean teachers can be paid more is that their class sizes are larger than in North American schools. On the other hand, Korean teachers don’t have to cope with large numbers of students with emotional, behavioral, learning, and language needs.