By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
About 21 percent of native English-speaking teachers at primary and secondary schools in Seoul hold teaching licenses.
According to data provided by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to Nam Jae-kyong, a Seoul Metropolitan Council member, 166, or 20.5 percent of 810 foreign English teachers at schools in Seoul, have teaching licenses.
Of them, those who hold Teachers of English to Speaker of Other Languages (TESOL) certificates accounted for 303, or 37.4 percent of the total. Those who hold both teacher's licenses and TESOL certificates accounted for 44, or 5.4 percent.
The education office currently advises schools to give preference to native speakers with a teachers' license and/or a TESOL or Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate when hiring. Those with higher education in English, education or incumbent schoolteachers are also preferred.
Those without teaching qualifications also can teach at schools should they have university degrees and/or experience in teaching English at public institutions for more than one year.