I suposse I still keep a little up on the ins and outs of the ESL industry in South Korea simply because so many people make inquiries about it over on my You Tube channel. I was just reading Brian in Jeollanam-do's site and it looks like things have just gotten a little or maybe a lot worse for folks thinking of moving to Korea to teach.
II'm sure many of you have heard that if you get a job in Korea teaching you will make good money and be really taken care of? Well, if you decide to take a job with the government's EPIK program, you're about to get a rather shitty deal!
EPIK says "fuck you," requires teachers to front costs of their own orientation with two weeks' warning
Jacob of ROK Sojourn passes along some emails concerning English Program in Korea [EPIK], the government program that places native speaker English teachers in Korean public schools. This one is from a recruiter, and in short it says that EPIK will no longer be providing transportation from Incheon to the orientation site, and that teachers will have to front the entire cost of their week-long orientation.
Read More on Brian's page...
Yeah, it was a shame that EPIK decided to go this route so late in the game. Certainly makes the case for going the private academy route. Aside from not having as much vacation as my public school counterparts, I much prefer the later hours (so I can have my day free), higher pay, and pre-paid plane tickets.
ReplyDeleteToo bad that Brian is ending his blog soon.
The whole situation just seems ridiculous. Either way there seemed to be some serious issues that need to be addressed with communication between EIK and recruiters and with communicating things to future instructors. However even with all of that, because of the job scarcity there will always be people willing to put up with the BS making it a bit difficult to get things changed.
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