According to Joe Seoul Man, who works across campus from me and also teaches at the professional center close to my dorm, my dream of remaining at Smoo forever is now up in smoke:
[Smoo], my place of employment, has jumped on the bandwagon by implementing a mandatory contract limit. We can re-sign only five times, meaning we can only work there for six years. That is longer than most places that have implemented this rule, but they made it retroactive back to 2005. They have their reasons, one commonly mentioned by foreign teachers is pension. After three years, they have to make a higher pension contribution. I don't know how much I buy into that. Sure that is a factor, but many of the universities in Korea subscribe to the same pension company. If we go from one to another, we're still with that same group. What I don't know is if that number goes up just as if we stayed at the same university. I have a feeling that the longer you are with that one pension scheme, regardless of the university, the employer contribution will increase with time. I'll have to check on that.
The other reason, the one which I believe to be a more compelling reason, is tenure. Very few foreign instructors in Korea have doctorate degrees. Many of us have a Master's degree, and some are working in universities with just a BA of BS. If you were a professor with a PhD, would you like someone with less education getting on tenure? Of course not. Many university guidelines state that after X number of years, the professors have to be put onto tenure track.
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Well, shit. I'm about to start my third year here, which means I've already finished one third of my Smoo career. I need to start formulating a long-range plan.
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If you can arrange so that your contract doesn't end in the middle of the semester, I can arrange for an interview at my school - currently no such limits and teachers on staff for 9 years.
ReplyDeleteIt's a dumb rule and in the end hurts the students and faculty due to not being able to keep quality people. In typical shortsitedness administration is looking at the budget and not the quality of teachers. If they are worried about money, don't renew teachers who are just mediocre or even crappy and keep the long termers around as long as they like.
also since you are with the language institute and not the english/freshmen department are you also under this rule? I've heard that most schools don't apply it to institute teachers.