Sung Gyon Gwan Institute

Mandok, Pusan

Hey Greg! I'm writing about a "hagwon" called Sung Gyon Gwan Institute in Mandok near Dongnae. The short story is that this place chews through teachers at a rate of about one every month or two. Why? Well its run by nice people (a brother and sister team, last name Lee) but the problem is the hugh class sizes, like up to 30 per class. You see this isn't a normal language hagwon but this place also teaches other school subjects like maths and science. Now these type of hagwons usually have large classes. So the teachers tend to get burnt out there pretty quickly. Its not easy keeping them all in line. The Korean teachers there use some rather excessive corporal punishment. The point is though that despite the large class sizes they only pay the standard part-time rates so most teachers end up figuring its really not worth it. Basically they don't want to share all the extra students fees around which is understandable but a little shortsighted. They need to either increase the pay to attract and keep capable teachers able to keep the students focused (without corporal punishment unless as a foreigner you want to go to jail) or split the language classes up into more manageable sizes. 7/00 Previous Teacher