By Jhoo Dong-chan
The country celebrates Teacher’s Day on May 15 every year, where students express their gratitude to their teachers. However, the day may be rather bittersweet to those who studied to be teachers only to fall short of realizing their goal.
A law firm staffer Park Gyu-ri, 33, was one of them, hoping to become a music teacher by taking the state-administered teacher certification exam.
Majoring in piano education at Yeungnam University in Daegu, Park moved to Seoul in 2011 to prepare for the exam and become a teacher in Seoul.
She took the exam every year for the past five years but failed to pass it.
“The competition gets tougher every year as more people want to be a teacher, a job that guarantees job security,” Park said.
While an increasing number of people take the exam for the job, the recruitment volume for teachers at public schools has decreased every year as the nation’s record-low birthrate started to influence the number of students at primary and secondary schools.
According to the Ministry of Education, only 3,381 new teachers were selected for public middle and high schools in 2013, while 12,038 students graduated from education colleges nationwide in the same year ― meaning the competition rate was about four to one.
The actual rate was higher because there were numerous applicants who had different majors than education but took the exam amid high unemployment here.
“After trying for the last four years, I dropped my dream of becoming a teacher and got a job at this law firm. Many of my friends who I studied with also gave up and chose other jobs,” Park said.
The Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training recently conducted a survey on 9,000 students who graduated from education colleges at least five years ago. The survey showed around 20 percent of them got jobs in the private education sector such as hagwon.
Some say a lack of financial resources for older teachers’ voluntary retirement payments also prevents hiring new teachers.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, 2,386 senior teachers applied for voluntary retirement last year, but only 181 teachers, or 7.6 percent, were allowed to leave schools due to a lack of funds.