By Jung Min-ho
Some 100 owners of private English institutes across Korea gathered in Seoul, Tuesday, to protest the government’s plan to ban native teachers from working at so-called English language kindergartens.
This comes after the Ministry of Education announced the plan last week as part of its efforts to help households reduce spending on private education.
Such institutes for children are often called English kindergartens, although they are not registered as under the law. With intensive English programs, they usually charge about double the cost of other kindergartens.
The ministry is now collecting opinions about the plan before making a final decision.
Members of the Korea Association of Hagwon said that the new policy not only hurts children’s ability to improve their English, but also violates parents’ right to choose the way they educate their children.
“We are deeply disappointed about the ministry’s attempt to give up the practical way of teaching English to children,” they said in a media briefing. “If adopted, the policy is also likely to force parents to send their children abroad for English education, which is actually more expensive.”
Moreover, the policy is unlikely to curb household spending on private English education because the cost for hiring a Korean English teacher is little different from the cost of hiring a native speaker, they claimed.
“English is becoming increasingly important as the world becomes more interconnected,” the association said. “It is critical for children not to miss the critical period for learning a language. The new policy won’t help anyone.”
The scheme is expected to affect 292 such institutes across the country, as well as other types of hagwon that teach English to children under school age.
The ministry believes private education for English and math are the biggest financial burdens faced by households.
According to the ministry’s statistics, English learning accounted for 65 percent of private education spending last year, estimated at 6.3 trillion won ($5.76 billion). Math came second, with 5.8 trillion won. The total amount of private education spending was 18.6 trillion won, or 347,000 won ($317) a month for each student. And spending on private education keeps growing every year.
The ministry also plans to make EBS workbooks easier by removing unpractical vocabulary from the books. About 70 percent of the questions at the College Scholastic Ability Test are based on the workbooks.
Yet many experts say the “easy English policy” will have a limited effect in reducing the costs for private education.
“If the English test becomes easier, students may end up spending more time and money for subjects like math to differentiate themselves,” an official at the Korea Federation of Teachers’ Association said. “The change has to be made more broadly.”