Hundreds of students preparing to become elementary school teachers protested last week against the education authority’s drastic cut in teaching staff recruitment in Seoul for next year.
The protest came after the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced that it would hire just 105 elementary school teachers for 2018, which is 88 percent less than the 846 teachers it hired for 2017. Nationally, 3,321 teachers will be recruited, 40.2 percent less than the 5,549 for this year. In less populous cities such as Gwangju, only five new teachers will be hired next year.
The plan to reduce teaching staff reflects the decrease in elementary school students due to the nation’s falling birthrate. In addition, there are fewer teachers choosing to retire due to the bad economy, which makes it even more difficult for education offices to hire new teachers. There are already 3,817 graduates nationally who have passed the examination for teaching certificates but are still waiting to be hired.
The students are complaining that the government has failed to adjust its hiring policy of teachers to reflect the above factors. Seoul National University of Education and other universities have reduced their enrollment of education majors to prepare for the reduction in the student population. But the education ministry has not taken corresponding measures by reducing the number of teaching jobs gradually over the past few years.
This case should be a reminder to President Moon Jae-in that his policy to expand public sector jobs could result in serious consequences.
As a key policy to tackle unemployment, the President has said that he will aim to create 81,000 jobs in the public sector and hire 16,000 more teachers during his time in office. In schools alone, there is already a serious oversupply of teachers that has led to all kinds of problems and backlash from education majors.
If the government keeps pushing to hire excessively in other public corporations and agencies, it could lead to a similar problems, not to mention a waste of tax money on recruiting and retaining unnecessary positions. The government should be extremely careful about expanding the number of public sector jobs as such a move will continue to burden future governments and taxpayers.
Also, the government needs to consider that a simple cut in teaching staff recruitment is not the fundamental solution. The root cause lies in the fact that more young couples are avoiding having children. Even with one of the lowest birthrates in the world, the government lacks a sense of urgency and commitment in dealing with problems arising from the low rate. Instead the President has mentioned half-baked measures such as the “two teachers per class” program as a way to guarantee jobs for elementary education majors. Such a program will hamper the quality and consistency of teaching, which will only spur deep distrust from parents and students in public education.