Bad news for native English teachers in Korea if this comes into law because it would reduce the number of English teaching jobs available in Korea:
Some 100 owners of private English institutes across Korea gathered in Seoul, Tuesday, to protest the government’s plan to ban native teachers from working at so-called English language kindergartens.
This comes after the Ministry of Education announced the plan last week as part of its efforts to help households reduce spending on private education.
Such institutes for children are often called English kindergartens, although they are not registered as under the law. With intensive English programs, they usually charge about double the cost of other kindergartens.
The ministry is now collecting opinions about the plan before making a final decision.
Members of the Korea Association of Hagwon said that the new policy not only hurts children’s ability to improve their English, but also violates parents’ right to choose the way they educate their children. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the plan to ban native English teachers is supposed to reduce the costs of sending children to English hagwons.
Who would of thought a Russian music degree would be so valuable:
Prosecutors said Sunday that they have arrested a South Korean woman on charges of selling fake Russian music degrees to about 120 South Koreans in collusion with a Russian professor.
The 51-year-old woman, identified only by her family name Do, was charged with selling counterfeit Russian music doctorates to 21 South Korean professors and musicians and fake master’s degrees to about 100 other Koreans, prosecutors said.
Do is believed to have colluded with a Russian professor, who now serves as the dean of a Russian music college, identified only as its initial, V, they said…….
“Do advertised her institute as a Korean campus of the Russian university and the Russian college dean came here along with a couple of other Russian professors for about 10 days a year to provide lessens,” said a prosecutor. “Each student paid about 4 million to 5 million won in lesson fees per semester.”
Do, who runs a private musical institute in southern Seoul, was accused of receiving about 2.5 billion won (US$2.4 million) from the buyers of the fake Russian degrees, said the prosecutors, adding that the illegal proceeds were equally shared with the Russian professor.
So why would someone buy a fake Russian degree you may ask:
The 21 Koreans who bought fake doctorates are now teaching in universities or performing in symphony orchestras after registering their forged degrees with the Korea Research Foundation.
It kind of pisses me off that many people work hard for many years to get through college and earn real degrees and people like this take good jobs away from these people with their fake credentials.
