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Unforeseen dangers of Korea's Hagwon culture
There is quite possibly no more frightening a word to the foreign community in Korea than hagwon. This Korean word conjures images of overworked staff, contract violations, difficult working conditions, broken promises and, dare I say it? Outright lies.
The private language school boom in Korea began in the early 1990's and continues today with a hagwonon nearly every corner. Certainly no one can find fault with parental desires of seeing their children educated to the best of their abilities and private institutes seem to address a need in an overburdened educational system. However, business owners with suspect educational credentials seem content to hire foreign staff with equally suspect educational credentials to pretend to teach (more like entertain) children in some kind of a babysitting service designed more to generate fast profit rather than quality education. There are, of course, exceptions. Many private institutes do genuinely atempt to give quality educational guidance to their students. Others, and often times it seems the majority, are more determined to squeeze the fast buck out of their "customers."
That Korean parents settle for poor educational standards is sad, but not really the concern of this writer. The future of Korea a decade or two from now is much more troubling when the effects ofthe foreign community are felt in the business that Korea does with the world.
The average foreign hagwon teacher is brought here to provide a pretty (often European) face to the teaching of English. That they have no particular qualification to teach, other than a university education, is no matter. And what are foreign teachers greeted with here in Korea? Contracts that are not honoured, salary obligations not met, health insurance not paid, requests to teach illegally, threats of punishments that breach immigration lawand on the dark side, sexual and physical assaults.
This of course is not only a Korean phenomenon. There are disreputable business people all over the world.One only needs to pause for a second to consider the nature of the used car salesmen in North America to find a comparable example to hagwon owners. There is, however, a major difference in that used car salesmen tend not to deal with a foreign community on a large scale.
Considering that the foreign teaching community is, to some extent, the elite of North America and other nations in that often the only requirement in getting a teaching job in Korea is a university degree. This means that all (legal) foreign teachers place in the top twenty-five percent of education. Only 23 percent of the people in Canada had a Bachelors degree or higher in 1998, 24.4 percent in the United States (2000 census). What then will happen to these educated elite, often in Korea only for a year to pay off student loans or to try to save money for further study, return to their home nation with details of maltreatment from their Korean bosses? What lessons will thesepeople take through their lives about Korean business when contracts are routinely ignored?
How much will these future leaders of other nations want to do business with a country that can't properly police a widespread industry? The website Dave's ESL cafe is widely regarded as the professional educators resource in teaching English around the world. One simply has to read the forums to see the litany of abuse that foreign English teaching staff suffers at the hands of hagwon owners. EFL-law.com a resource site for teachers of English across the world reports reports that it receives far more complaints about Korea than any country in the world. In fact with the American and Canadian embassies regularly posting warnings against teaching in Korea, the number of foreign teachers in Korea has dropped from 13,000 in 1997 to 6000 in 2005. It is quite telling that on thejob posting section of Dave's ESL cafe there are postings ESL cafe there are postings for 735 jobs in Korea and 825 for the rest of the world. Apparently, the word has gotten out against teaching in theLand of Morning Calm.
Recent moves at some universities in Korea have moved them into the realm of hagwons. Attempts to deny staffd due compensation, violations of Korean labour and immigration laws, unfair dismissal and other unfair employment practices have also taught their foreign staff about the dangers of doing business with Korea. Even in the government run programs of EPIK and GEPIK one can hear reports of unfair business practices being foisted upon the unsuspecting foreign worker.
When the hagwon boom in Korea is over and the young, educated, foreign staff have gleefully returned to their home nations to rise in business, academe and politics what will these people have to say about their experiences in Korea and about doing business with Korean firms? When the time comes a decade or two from now in a North American boardroom and someone suggests offshore manufacturing in Korea or another nation, it is difficult to find fault with the person who lived in Korea stating: "Don't do business with Koreans, they don't honour their contracts." Only through strong desire of the government and the people of Korea can the long-term damage of this unforeseen problem be abated. Todd Vercoe wrote this article published in the Korea Times. He teaches at Inje University in Kimhae, South Kyongsang Province.
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