(EDITORIAL from the JoongAng Daily on March 19)

Good use of graduates

The ruling Grand National Party is planning to mobilize university graduates with
degrees in art, music and gymnastics who have failed to get formally employed to
teach in after-school programs at elementary and middle schools.

Should they teach music, art, basketball, football and taekwondo, the government
will provide their schools subsidies between 600,000 won ($422) and 650,000 won
to pay each teacher.
The measure is desirable; it can create jobs for college graduates and reduce
private education costs for households. If the program turns out to work
properly, it will hugely benefit public education.
It is true that Korean public education has neglected developing students???
specialty and aptitude. Even if schools want to invite lecturers from outside,
the pool of human resources is so small that they have had a hard time securing
sufficient numbers of teachers. Assessing the qualification of teachers has also
been difficult.
In this respect, the effort to use those college graduates as after-school
teachers can set a crucial starting point for resuscitating extracurricular
programs.
Hiring unemployed university graduates is expected to facilitate securing a
qualified workforce. Given that, fresh out of college, they are relatively young,
they should easily build a good rapport with their students at elementary and
middle schools. If the government forms a pool of young after-school teachers and
trains them before dispatch, it will be possible to create a more diverse and
in-depth syllabus for art, music and gymnastics linked to the formal educational
curriculum.
To accomplish these, the government should take a more systematic approach to
managing those lecturers. Selecting them should not be left to the individual
schools. The education offices in each city and province should research in
advance the demand for such teachers in all schools in their jurisdiction and ask
universities to recommend students who are qualified. That way, training programs
offered by education offices in different areas can help those recruited to adapt
to the schools.
Of course, schools will need to monitor the performance of those new lecturers
and help them improve their skills. The Grand National Party estimates that
hiring 16,000 university graduates in art, music and gymnastics to teach 320,000
students will require a budget of 76.8 billion won ($54.1 million) over an
eight-month period.
The budget issue can be resolved if the new scheme is a success, and accordingly
schools will be willing to pay in the future.
(END)