Retroactive Job Requirements

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About a year ago I wrote about whether Korea was still a good place to teach in. There is an oversupply of teachers and it is definitely an employers' market. Many universities are taking advantage of this and some have decided to initiate retroactive requirements.

Take Sungshin University in Seoul, for example. Many people were hired there with only a BA. However, last year Korea decided to start requiring university teachers to have a BA + 4 or an MA + 2. This meant that they had to have at least that many years teaching at a university or equivalent and preferably this experience was in Korea.

What Sungshin University did was look at what teachers had when they were hired, not what they had then. That meant that even if you had an MA + 2 now, but only had a BA and no university experience when you were hired you weren't allowed to renew.

Having spoken to teachers who worked there it seems like they wanted to clean house. No notice was given and it's simply not logic. Yes, I understand that that's the requirement now, for new teachers. However, you should implement a current rule to teachers that have already been hired.

My advice is to continue to build up your CV. Create material, teach new classes, get an MA, do a TEFL certificate such as the online CCELT or the online University of Toronto certificate, network, attend conferences, and look for jobs every single time you're up for renewal. You never know what will happen plus it's always good to get interviewing experience. 

I'd love to hear your opinion. What do you think about retroactive requirements?

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