By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
About 3,000 teachers under a new internship program will be hired at elementary and secondary schools from the fall semester, this year. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Monday it will alleviate the administrative workload of teachers by providing schools with more manpower, so that teachers can concentrate more on educational duties.
In an outline to President Lee Myung-bak, the ministry said schools will have 10,000 more teachers by next year and education offices in each district will focus on consulting schools rather than supervising them.
"Teachers used to spend much time in dealing with miscellaneous affairs rather than preparing for their classes," said Jang Mi-ran, a ministry official. "We can improve the quality of education at public schools by helping teachers focus just on teaching."
The ministry has already recruited 7,000 teacher interns so far under the reform plan.
In this regard, city and provincial education offices will also reduce required administrative documents by 50 percent, the ministry official said.
In addition, it will offer incentives to those who are recognized as "best"' teachers. The education authorities seek to raise the number of these up to 2,000 by next year from the current 333.
With the teacher evaluation system, which was enforced from this past March, 120 teachers will be selected in 2010 for excellent performances and enjoy sabbatical opportunities as a reward. The number of teachers who can benefit will increase to as many as 1,000 in 2012.
In contrast, those who are poorly evaluated will be subject to more intensive training programs.
