The Marmot’s Hole

Speaking of English teachers, the Kyunghyang Shinmun’s Newsmaker magazine ran a piece on how the new E-2 visa regulations are driving up the price of foreign English teachers in Korea.

That, of course, is making hagwon owners very unhappy.

“The number of foreign teacher applicants has dropped considerable. I understand there are also protests. In cases like the United States, it appears their position is, ‘Are we some sort of criminals?’ Also, the consular interviews are becoming a problem. Some places do them, others don’t. Do all consulates have to do them? Consuls don’t just give E-2 visa interviews, after all.”

So said Choe Chang-jin, the general director of the foreign language education council of the Korea Association of Hakwon, conveying the complaints of Korea’s hagwon. Some 1,200 hagwon are part of the foreign language committee council in Seoul alone, and 6,500 nationwide.

According to hagwon owners, since the measures were implemented, it’s become exceedingly difficult to find foreign teachers. Provincial hagwon are having the worst of it, with schools closing down. And the competition between hagwon for foreign teachers is growing fierce, something that has not gone unnoticed by recruiting agencies, which schools claim are busy stealing teachers by offering them better and better conditions to work elsewhere.

So what do the foreigners think about all this?

Well, Newsmaker says, according to one website dealing with employment in Korea, the opinion that was getting the most support was that Korean hagwon need only pay a reasonable wage, guarantee legal benefits like pensions and health insurance, give more vacation time and maybe boost pay. Another foreigner thought the new visa regulations would come to nothing, citing how measures to make child seats in cars mandatory were scrapped right away following protests.

Newsmaker notes that the strengthened E-2 regulations are the biggest issue in the foreign teacher community, with long debates about whether one can get their criminal checks done online or whether they need to go abroad. Oddly enough, the magazine says the need for criminal background checks and physical exams is getting sympathy from foreigner teachers.

Hagwon, however, complain about the lack of a grace period. Choe said his council is getting a flood of calls from member hagwon about the issue. Hagwon complain the Immigration Bureau offices themselves don’t really understand the regulation changes — teachers who received their E-2 visas before the rule changes, when applying for an extension, supposedly have a grace period up to March 15 to submit their criminal background checks, but immigration offices are telling teachers to submit the checks when they apply for their extensions. Or so said Choe.

Not everyone is unhappy, though, points out Newsmaker. The people who run the Naver.com cafe “Citizens Movement to Eradicate Illegal Foreign Language Teachers,” set up in the wake of English Spectrum-Gate, are delighted. Said cafe manager Lee On-ung (38), “The hagwon claim that it takes two months to get the criminal background checks. So doesn’t that mean the enforcement of the regulation has been delayed until March 15 in the case of teachers who came here before the new regulations went into effect?… If hagwon], citing problems in teacher supply, shake the system, and crimes by unqualified teachers take place, who will take responsibility?” An official from the Immigration Bureau, meanwhile, said the changes to the visa system had been in the works for several years, during which opinions had been fine-tuned between immigration authorities, government ministries and interested parties like the hagwon and schools.

Nevertheless, the issue of illegal and unqualified English teachers continues. The strengthened E-2 regulations, says Newsmaker, seem to be just a minimum safety net. A great number of foreigners on tourist or other visas are illegally tutoring or teaching in hagwon. There are an estimated 30,000 foreigners teaching English in Korea. Only 16,000 have E-2 visas, making most of the rest illegal. The problem is that authorities find it difficult to crack down on the illegal teachers, and rely primarily on tips. Lee and his website have been collecting tips on illegal and unqualified teachers and passing them on to the authorities for investigation. Lee said he’s still getting tips about people doing part-time teaching or teaching in schools on tourist visas. He said that when teachers — hiding their nationality — are caught residing in Korea illegally, the hagwon appear interested only in their immediate interests, not in protecting their students from harm.

(Note to Newsmaker: Next time you cite Lee On-ung, I suggest you read the mission statement on his website to get an understanding of what his real concern seems to be)

Well, anyway, to help improve the supply of foreign English teachers, Immigration is considering changes that would allow nationals of nations that have adopted English as an official language to come to Korea to teach.

Hagwon, however, are skeptical it will help. Choe said the public currently avoids even teachers from Australia, New Zealand and other places with “British” accents, so nobody’s going to use teachers from countries where English is not the mother tongue. Lee On-ung, on the other hand, said that fundamentally, there can be no solution to the problem of teacher supply. He said that in a society where status is decided by your English ability, the preferential treatment of foreign English teachers would continue, and what was needed was for public schools to take that demand and make it so that everyone could learn English.