NAME: DE LA CRUZ, RAQUEL B.

COURSE: BSED MATH2A

ED04 ATS FINALS

Choose any country and describe their teaching profession practices.

Country: South Korea

Teachers are held in very high esteem in South Korea. They are generally treated with more respect than
their American counterparts by their students and society and are addressed with the honorific term.
According to Time magazine teachers and principals endure rigorous evaluations — which include
opinion surveys by students, parents and peer teachers. Low-scoring teachers are required to take
additional training.

In the early 2000s, there were 122,743 primary teachers, 192,947 secondary teachers and 114,231 higher
education teachers. The student-teacher ratio was 31.1 in primary schools and 25.1 in secondary school.

The Korean public education structure is divided into three parts:

 six years of primary school
 three years of middle school, and
 three years of high school
divided into academic and vocational schools

Primary school pupils start at 08:00 and finish around 13:00. Middle and high schoolers stay in school a
little longer, from 08:00 to around 16:30. The first 30 minutes at school are for self-studying, during
which the teacher checks attendance and takes care of administrative matters. Classes start at 08:30. Each
lesson is 45 minutes long with 10-minute breaks in between.

o Number of teaching hours per year in primary education: 676 hours

o Number of teaching hours per year in lower secondary education: 517 hours
o Number of teaching hours per year in upper secondary education: 545 hours

COMMON TEACHER RESPONSIBILITIES

 keep the students engaged and talking as much as possible.

 Organizing textbooks, making photocopies of student worksheets, mapping out your classes and
preparing classroom materials.
 You’ll need to teach a set curriculum each day. If you’re unable to cover all of it during class,
then you can assign it as homework
 Regular staff meetings with co-teachers and school management are quite common. How many
staff meetings you have depends on management.
 You may be asked to attend the occasional teacher workshop or seminar with your co-teachers.
It’s a great way to learn some new teaching skills.
 Korean parents expect report cards from their children’s teachers. These reports are usually
required quarterly, or bi-annually.
TEACHER LICENSING AND RECRUITMENT

o All teachers have the status of national civil servants in Korea, and teacher training is centrally
regulated. However, teachers' affairs are delegated to the superintendents at the metropolitan and
provincial offices of education. University professors still enjoy the prestige given to teachers
traditionally. Although teachers at the precollege level are no longer loved and respected as
formerly, they are still considered key to the system's proper functioning.

o Teachers are classified into teachers (first and second level), assistant teachers, professional
counselors, librarians, training teachers, and nursing teachers. They must meet specific standards
for each category and be licensed by the Minister of Education, as regulated by presidential
decree.

o To enhance professionalism in educational leadership, the government established the Korea

National University of Education in 1985. This university was designed to conduct research on
kindergartens and elementary and secondary schools, as well as to produce an elite corps of
dedicated teachers—not only future teachers but also in-service trainees.

o Teachers are recruited locally on the basis of apparently rather mechanical selection tests
administered by district education authorities. College students concentrate on preparing for these
exams rather than studying the subjects they intend to teach or other classroom management
skills. OECD reviews have also found no direct links between teachers' expertise and the subjects
they teach. Major fields in colleges and universities have not been found to match important
subject fields in the secondary school curriculum.

o The training programs emphasize pedagogy, ethics, and information management ability, as well
as class management and counseling skills (MOE).

o Unions & Associations: The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA) is an

umbrella organization for the nation's teachers' associations. Its main tasks are to improve
teachers' work sites, to conduct research on teachers and training, to protect and enhance teachers,
to publish educational books, and to provide benefits for members.

Qualified teachers can expect to make somewhere between 2.3 – 2.8 million won/month in the private
language school job market. Salaries vary based on a number of factors which include: your field of
study, amount of full-time teaching experience, the location of the school and related duties and
obligations. Market conditions can also affect salaries. Similarly, you can expect to earn 2.1 – 2.6 million
won/month as a public school teacher. International school salaries vary depending on the teacher’s
workload and obligations. Most I-school pay starts in the 2.5 – 2.8 million KRW range and goes as high
as 3.8 million KRW/month.