Most international foreign schools provide free round trips every year to their teacher's home countries. Gwangju foreign school doesn't. A teacher from a regular International school looking for another International school to work at would be advised to give this place a miss. Should a teacher with international school experience accept a position at Gwangju foreign school, he or she would be in for a rude awakening, because the benefits in comparison to one's former International places of emploment would be non existant.
On a positive side the school would be a good starting point for a teacher with no experience, as the Holleys accept teachers without certification. Unfortunately the new visa restrictions require applicants for an E7 visa (foreign school teacher visa) to have at least 5 years experience in their field. That means they will be unable to hire the younger crop of teachers that they usually get from the Princeton Asia Recruitment firm. Certified teachers who have no International experience, but experience in their field might not be averse to the spartan conditions of Gwangju foreign School, but then there are better paying schools looking for certified teachers without international experience anyway
Pay isn't the best at Gwangju foreign school. The school pays the equivalent of your basic Korean English Academy or GEPIC , SMOE teacher who can get by with word search hand outs, one word answer handouts, and by keeping a sense of order. International school teachers like public school teachers do two to three times the amount of work which includes making tests, marking them, meeting the parents etc., etc.,. Now if the school payed what the teachers really deserve, it might just scrape by as a an OK place to work.
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All Institutes, International schools,foreign schools and what have you are about to suffer, because of the ridiculous red tape prospective teachers have to go through to work in Korea.
A police check is required of all applicants as is an interview in one's home country with a Korean consulate or Embassy. One will find that the person they interview with wont know anything about the new immigration requirements nor in fact be able to speak English.
Official documents will have to be submitted of course, but there is a new requirement that the documents be "apostilled" (most people don't know what the hell it means).
I also think a health check is required for aids, and drug usage. The drug usage test is way off the planet, and is given with an arbitrary set of criteria for penalties for the time of drug usage, and the frequency of drug ussage.
Will be interesting to see how the education department goes with it's ridiculous rules for the hiring of expat teachers in Korea.
The rules for hiring have been ramped up as a kneejerk reaction to Christopher Paul Neil having been a teacher in Korea. Unfortunately blame for the greater restrictions on expat teachers is currently being heaped on Robert Holley's Gwangju Foreign School as it was the last place CPN taught.
One of the big Foreign International schools in Seoul is sponsered (owned) by Samsung, so their should be sparks flying all over the place when they aren't able to get their required staff. Ruling is that because Mr Neil was employed at a private school in Gwangju all foreign International schools can't hire someone unless that person has 5 years experience in his or her field. Most international schools need the newer graduates to fill a lot of their slots. Be interesting to see how El Presidente LMB of Korea will cope when the Samsung mob get stuck into his stonehead Minister of education.
The ministry of education is considering restricting the local Korean intake to foreign schools to 30% of the student body. That would cause problems, because most of the International foreign schools only have a handful of expatriate students.
The accomodation provided by Gwangju Foreign school sucks. It's appalling in fact. The apartments are very small, and the whole apartment building looks like it should be demolished.
The school is a profit making institution, and the owners don't put any money back into upgrading the facilities.
There is a review of International schools somewhere, and there are several comments by former teachers about this schools poor facilities. The owners the Holleys refuse to invest in the school, and upgrade it. Will kind of cramp their lifestyle methinks.
http://internationalschoolreviews.com/nonmembers/updates.htm
The above link has comments about Gwangju Foreign school by former teachers.
One teacher said the owners and administration were terrible, and that the owners do not put money back into the school. The "not putting money back into the school facilities" is a travesty, even more so now that the opinion has been expressed on an "International School reviews page".
It's a shame that The Holley's have let their school and it's organization go to rack and ruin. The students are your basic students, and I'm sure the very dedicated teachers that are working at the school suffer in silence out of duty to their students.
Now the Gwangju Foreign school is an OK school in comparison to a lot of the other schools, so essentially the whole International school thing in Korea needs to be revamped.
Just check the International reviews about other Korean schools, and you'll find a lot of horror stories.
In response to the previous entry. The school isn't an OK school. The owners the Holleys are very good at keeping up appearances. He uses his TV and supposed clean cut image to attract people and students to his school, but under the venir or sharade he is a dirty stinking dishonest cut throat buisnessman.
The Korean TV programes need someone with a bit more integrity, and not a crook to represent the expats.
Right now his school like all of the other international schools throughout the world will attract the newbie teachers who are still starry eyed, and looking for an experience in a new country. They have to otherwise they'd fold. of course there will always be new graduates ready to be suckered into unscrupulous outfits that are simply masquerading as institutions of learning.
The ruling now is that teachers must have 2 years of relevant experience to qualify for an E7 visa to work in an International school.
Mr Robert Holley makes a big display about his being an International attorney with membership in the West Virginia Bar association, The American Bar association, other bar associations, and the Chamber of Commerce for foreigeners in Korea, but breaks the law with the way he runs his school. Someone who sells himself with credentials like he does should have some integrity, but he doesn't. He's nothing but a big hypocrite. The Korean media should dump him for someone else who doesn't disgrace his fellow expats.
I have been reading a lot about teachers here with bogus degrees or incompleted degrees. Many have fake diplomas and forged college records. The suppliers of the bogus transcripts and bogus degrees do a good job, because they search out for colleges that have closed and use their names for their schemes. The immigration department doesn't have the manpower to check the credentials of people wanting to work in Korea, and that leaves the door wide open for anyone with initive and balls to go there and teach.
Fortunately or unfortunately some of theses unqualified teachers sometimes turn out to be much better teachers than the qualified teachers.
This happens in the International scene as well. It's not just the English teachers who are pulling the wool over peoples eyes, but the teachers in International schools are doing it too.
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