Spiking English Teacher Costs, Cheap Gyopo the ‘Next Best Thing,’ and Throw the Sex-Crazed Pot Smokers Out

Screw “peak oil” — the real threat to the Korean economy is peak woneomin.

Native Speaker Cost Skyrocketing!

Korea’s favorite Moonie rag the Segye Ilbo, in two separate reports, warns that added immigration requirements for foreign English teachers has led to a shortfall in teachers coming to Korea, and teacher salaries are skyrocketing as a result.

In the first piece, the Segye Ilbo warns that foreign teacher salaries are skyrocketing, and school parents are paying the price in the form of higher tuitions. For instance, private elementary schools are charging as much as universities now because of English immersion programs.

Since the government announced that strengthening English education in public schools was going to be a priority, hagwon have been at war with one another to recruit foreign teachers. With foreign teachers becoming scarce, teacher salaries are going up, with schools having to pay a premium for particularly popular teachers.

According to hagwon, foreign English teachers teaching elementary, middle and high school students are getting 20~30% more than they were last year. To employ your average foreign English teacher teaching elementary school students (as a regular employee), schools need to pay 3~4 million won in airfare, 400,000 won a month in housing and around 2 million won a month in salary — an average monthly cost of over 6 million won. Since the government announced its new English education policies, this price has continued to go up. For instance, foreign teachers (in this case, not hired as regular employees) were recently charging 60,000 won an hour, up from 40,000 won.

Recently, many teachers aren’t even waiting to finish their contracts, and are instead being lured with cash premiums to other schools. Because of this, some hagwon are paying 500,000 — 1 million won signing bonuses to proven teachers, on top of 1 million won to local agents. Moreover, large-scale hagwon are snatching up all the “star” teachers, making skilled teachers a very valuable commodity.

Quick, somebody give Scott Boras a call!

Anyway, the price, of course, is ultimately paid by the school parent. One English hagwon for elementary school kids in Daechi-dong that was charging 200,000 won and 300,000 won a month for six hour a week and nine hour a week courses, respectively, has from this year raised those numbers by 100,000 won each. Other schools were seeing similar spikes. Said one hagwon official, “With the number of foreign teachers limited and demand increasing, the costs have to go up.” He also complained that schools in Gangnam were easily able to get teachers, but smaller schools in Gangbuk were having a tough time.

The reality was that to survive, smaller schools were hiring Koreans with foreign passports. Because of this, overseas Koreans, who’d been treated relatively shabbily compared to “native speakers,” were coming back to Korea in droves. One 33-year-old Canadian gyopo teaching in Daechi-dong said, “The advantage of gyopo is that we are cheaper than native speakers and we understand Korea’s education culture… Recently, inquiries from second and third-generation gyopo who finished university abroad and are looking to come to Korea have increased 20~30%.”

The operator of a hagwon in Cheongdam-dong said, “With native speakers growing more expensive recently, the reality is that we’ve no choice but to go after gyopo as the next best thing… Their advantage is that they are cheaper than native speakers and its relatively easy to communicate with them.”

Well, it’s better than being a 검은 머리 외국인, I guess.

New Regulations Caused Teacher Shortage

In the second report, the Korea Association of Hakwon complain that foreign teachers need to return to their home countries every year to renew their E-2 visas, and hagwon are forced to take on this cost. They also say that the government policy to use gyopo and foreign Korean studies students as after-school teachers cannot improve the quality of English education.

The Segye Ilbo notes that schools are faced with a limited choice of teachers because E-2 visa applicants are restricted to seven countries only — the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland. It says the choice is further restricted by Koreans’ preference for American accents over British accents and British-like accents such as Aussies and Kiwis.

Schools complain that unnecessary regulations for E-2 visas are leading to rising teacher salaries. Since December of last year, the Ministry of Justice has forced prospective teachers to submit criminal records and health checks as well undergo interviews at Korean consulates abroad (Marmot’s Note: My understanding is that the interviews and health checks were done away with). The problem. says the Segye Ilbo, is that the visa runs out after a year, after which teachers must resubmit all these documents. Unfortunately, for teachers from the United States, Canada and South Africa, which are not party to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (Marmot’s Note: Again, my understanding is that the United States and South Africa ARE party to the Hague Convention; it’s only Canada that’s not), this means they must return home every year to prepare their documents. And the cost for this, the report says, is born by the schools, which in turn jack up tuitions.

The Ministry of Justice has since March implemented supplementary policies allowing teachers to get their documents OK’d by their nations’ consulates in Korea, but this has come to naught, since the US, New Zealand and South African embassies don’t verify criminal records. Moreover, the Immigration Bureau is still demanding that teachers from non-Hague Convention members (i.e., Canucks) submit documents directly issued by authorities in their home nations.

To make up for the lack of teachers, the government will from August employ gyopo students and foreign students majoring in Korea-related fields as after-school teachers, but this, too, is running into problems. Parents, it seems, are not particularly interested in sending their kids to English classes taught not by professional teachers, but by kids whose only qualification is that they speak English (Marmot’s Note: Like the current E-2 system is any better?). Said one school parent, “Perhaps gyopo university students can make up for the lack in foreign teachers, but the problem is whether they can guarantee the quality of the classes… For this system to take root, we definitely need measures to verify the ability of these students.”

Well, Somebody’s Got to Watch These Potheads

Despite all this, there are still those fighting against the evil English teachers bringing drugs and opportunities for interracial sex to Korea. In the Korea Times, the Citizens’ Association for Lawful English Education promotes its work to rid Korea of problematic teachers:

A Civic group said that its actions to expel illegal English teachers will help upgrade the image of legal foreign educators.

The group, named “Citizens’ Association for Lawful English Education,” has some 16,000 members on its Web site (cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum).

Pictures depicting foreign teachers holding a “sexy costume party” in 2005 were the key driver for the creation of the civic group.

“There are many illegal foreign teachers. We organized this group to help make our schools and hagwons free of these problematic teachers,” said Lee Eun-ung, manager of the Internet cafe.

A hard-working group of lads they are:

Most members of the group participate in online activities, and some also actively engage in off-line activities to help police find foreigners who engage in drug use. So far, they have played a role in nabbing more than 60 people in illegal drug-related cases.

“Sometimes we stay up at night tracking and watching foreign nationals. We have even found some foreign teachers that take drugs then teach students at hagwons the following day,” Lee said. “We will continue to help police deport these foreign teachers.”

Staying up all night tracking and watching foreign nationals? Well, if you’re not getting laid, I guess you’ve got to do something to pass the time. Probably more productive than blogging, to tell the truth.

Lest you think these guys are complete jerks, the group also plans “to work on improving the bad images of foreigners, tarnished by a few illegal foreign nationals.”

Read Brian’s take on the story while you’re at it.