The school runs an English camp at the school in the summers. It's not in the teachers contract, but Holley's ask the teachers at the initial interview if they would be willing to work at their English camp. All teachers agree to it of course, because they don't think anything of it at the time. What the Holleys don't conveniently mention is that they will with hold severance if the teacher doesn't do the camp. The teachers learn this later from the other teachers who have been there a little longer. If the camp was in the contract then fair enough, but it's not, so the request by the Holleys at the interview is not really binding. All a teacher has to do at Gwangju foreign school to get severance is teach his or her assigned classes for the duration of their contract, and nothing more. Now the labour board in Gwangju is very willing to step in and mediate to ensure a school honours it's contract, and they would come down hard on the Holleys for with holding severance from someone who refused to do the camp. Unfortunately for the teachers at Gwangju foreign school, and fortunately for the Holleys the teachers are insecure and are afraid to make a stand. It's understandable, because many don't want jeopardize their jobs , and are caught in a limbo of not knowing wether they will win their case or not. I don't know why the Holleys don't put the camp in their contract to legitmize it, so they don't have to resort to subterfuge. Sure beats me. Any way they are aware of the insecurity of the teachers, and for some unknown reason they seem to feel it's better to underhandedly bleed them for as much extra money as possible.
There is one teacher at the school who refused to do the camp. I gathered from talking to him that he had to sign a shorter contract so that the Holleys would not have to pay him severance. Geeze the owners got the place sown up real good to avoid the normal legitimate payements that they should make to their teachers. The teacher may or may not have known what was going on, but anyway he should not have been short changed the way he was, and that to me and anyone else who can see through these manouverings shows what kind of cut throat buisness people actually run the place.
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The school blatantly disobeys the law in many ways. Intenational schools can only accept Korean applicants who can show with their passports that they have lived abroad for 5 or more years. Those students who have a non Korean passport fall under a different set of criteria. Now there are many students at the school who are there just to learn English, and whom have only been overseas for vacations. Man oh man. Wonder how the school would stand up if they were to be inspected by the appropriate authorities.
If the school is benefiting from taking students who haven't lived abroad for 5 years as is the law, then other private international schools are doing it too. Makes a mockery of the laws here, and shows how the well off always benefit even if there is a little circumventing of the law. Oh well that's life I guess. There will be more Foreign International schools in Korea in the near future, because they are a means to get educated abroad, and because they are money spinners as well.
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