By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

The Seoul education office withdrew employment notices sent to more than 50 native English speakers, inviting complaints from applicants who were supposed to start work at public schools in the city in the fall.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) Tuesday, it hired too many foreign English teachers to fill the 560 positions planned at elementary and secondary schools. It said it hired more applicants than necessary as some tend to fail to come to Seoul.

"About 100 applicants more than necessary were picked. Of them, we had to withdraw employment notices for about 56 applicants, and the rest voluntarily quit," an SOME official said.

The sudden cancellation has frustrated prospective teachers, leaving many with complaints that they are now stuck without a job and demanding that the employer compensate for costs such as airline tickets and work visa applications.

"I just got a call from my recruiter. SMOE has apparently rejected my contract. After signing my contract and sending all my documents, they have said that they do not want me anymore. So now what should I do?" said an applicant using the ID "t1m1ty" on Dave's ESL Cafe.

"They are doing this a week before it starts! Bearing in mind, I've already received my notice of appointment. Is there a clause in the contract to allow this? At the moment, this leaves me stuck without a job and all the costs. They said they will keep me on file to apply in either March or August 2010. Do I have any other options now?" said user Monochroma on the online cafe.

An official from the education office said, "Many foreign teachers give up working with us at the last minute, perplexing schools that are supposed to have native English speakers, so we secure extra teaching hopefuls every year. For this semester, we selected enough applicants for a possible shortage as we recruit a large number of teachers."

She added some of the foreign teachers whose contracts were withdrawn had failed to submit necessary documents and skip mandatory orientation programs.

Last spring, the office hired 300, hiking the total number of teachers to 861 in Seoul, and has recruited 560 for the coming semester, the largest number since it started to bring in native English teachers.

SMOE also made it clear that almost all of the failed applicants agreed to the plan.

"We obtained consent from all of the teaching hopefuls on the job cancellation and we put some of them on the waiting list," said another official from the office, indicating that they didn't violate any contract agreements.

The office, however, helped some 10 failed applicants who have already arrived in Seoul land jobs on the English Program in Korea (EPIK) organized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Those with questions on the issue should call the education office on (02) 3999-774.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr