Wednesday, April 10, 2013

More on the fleeing teacher

Quite a few news outlets picked up Yonhap's story yesterday of the native speaking teacher fleeing the country, including the Joongang Ilbo, MBN (the Maeil Gyeongje, which made a slight addition to the title and concept: "'Anxiety over war spreading,' native speaking teacher goes AWOL... and the students?"), E Today, and TV Chosun, who went to the school and interviewed the principal and even showed the letter she left (translated into Korean). Newsis published an article today which used the letter from the TV Chosun report and seems to have tried, but not really succeeded, at writing a negative article.
'Perplexed' by female native speaking instructor who left the country without notice due to 'anxiety over war'
Amid a heightened sense of crisis over war on the Korean peninsula due to things like the closing of the Gaesong Industrial Complex and the preparation of a missile launch, an elementary school in Jeollanam-do is perplexed by its female native speaking teacher's sudden return to her home country due to anxiety over North Korea's threats. [...]

E was under contract to work from March 1 this year until the end of February next year, and was hired by the school's principal.

Calculating the cost of a deposit and personnel expenses, the school is searching for a replacement teacher, but a criminal record check takes two months to obtain and since the situation in Korea is not good, it won't be easy to find a replacement, and disruptions to English classes are inevitable.

As well, an official from the provincial office of education said, "From the position of the native speaking teacher and her family, they can't help but feel anxious when it comes to news related to war on the Korean peninsula." "There haven't been any other cases like E's of people fleeing the country, but we've received intermittent phone calls asking if people are still working."

In Jeollanam-do there are currently 460 native speaking teachers from 7 different countries teaching English, Chinese, and Japanese.
I just find it funny that among things Newsis describes as contributing to a "heightened sense of crisis," it left out North Korea telling foreigners in South Korea to "take evacuation measures in case of war." One wonders the effect that little announcement might have.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

All the hagwon has to do is get a female Gyopo. They don't have to have a CRC and HIV/AIDS test. At least the female Gyopo where I work didn't have to(because she's a female). That's what she told me! They can't understand why this one particular female teacher left the country but it's understandable that tourists aren't coming?
"Tourism sector suffers as visitors get war jitters"
http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2969933&cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1

crossmr said...

Last year, an import Canadian hockey player bailed mid-season from High1 citing "worry about North Korea" as his reason for leaving. It probably had nothing to do with him averaging like a game misconduct every single game and being on pace to set a league record for penalty minutes.