New E-2 Regulations
Due to the recent case of the pedophile that worked in Korea, who then fled to Thailand, new regulations loom for current English teachers in Korea. If the Ministry of Justice follows through, in addition to criminal and medical checks, we’ll need to fly back to our home countries to renew our visas! Yes, you read that correctly. It’s going to suck BIG TIME for us.
According to a Ministry of Justice press release, foreigners who apply for teaching visas will have to submit a criminal background check and a medical check, and must undergo an interview at the closest Korean consulate to their home town. Visa runs to Japan will also be scrapped. Teachers must now receive and renew visas in their home country.
I live near Portland, Oregon, and the two Korean consulates closest to me are in Seattle or San Francisco! What a waste of time and money. Here’s a list of all the Korean consulates in the United States.
Read the entire news article HERE or below:E-2s to need medical, criminal checks
The application process for an E-2 teaching visa will be tightened up in December.
According to a Ministry of Justice press release, foreigners who apply for teaching visas will have to submit a criminal background check and a medical check, and must undergo an interview at the closest Korean consulate to their home town. Visa runs to Japan will also be scrapped. Teachers must now receive and renew visas in their home country.
The exact date of implementation has not yet been decided, an official at the Ministry of Justice said. “The changed regulations will be implemented sometime in December but we have not yet set an exact date, as the ministry is still in the process of finalizing the details.”
“Hagwon and other employers of foreign teachers will be informed as soon as the details have been finalized,” he told The Korea Herald.
The tightened controls come in the wake of news that a pedophile suspect worked in Korea on several occasions, along with the avalanche of fake-diploma scandals throughout Korean society. The suspect has not yet been convicted, and there is no public link to any offences in Korea.
“We have been drawing up the new regulations for some time but the recent case of Christopher Paul Neil could be said to have brought the issue to the surface,” said the official.
“Drug use and other criminal activities carried out by foreign English teachers have been a social issue for some time, and have built up to dangerous levels in recent years. That is why we are implementing changes now.”
The new regulations will only affect foreigners holding E-2 visas, and those seeking an E-2 visa.
“We do not plan to strengthen regulations concerning all foreign nationals in Korea, as that would be unnecessary,” the ministry official added. “We are focusing on teachers because they come in close contact with children, and we have a duty to protect children from unnecessary dangers.”
Concern is mounting among current teachers, not about the validity of the new rules, but about the “messy” implementation, as one teacher described it. They say information from the government has been vague and unclear. Potential teachers are also put off by the uncertainty of the new regulations, which some important government organizations don’t even seem to be aware of.
The Korea Herald contacted Government for Foreigners, a Korean government organization which “aims to provide comprehensive information on entry regulations.” When asked if there were changes to the regulations being planned for December, the help desk clerk’s answer was a vague “probably.”
He was unsure of when they would be implemented. “How are we supposed to know,” he asked the reporter. The clerk then said that he is aware of new regulations, but could not comment on them, saying “We will have to wait and see.”
There are concerns about the logistics of the consulate interview part of the plan. “It’s about time they had criminal record checks, and the health check is a good idea,” says Tricia Elliot, a teacher at a private institute in Seoul. “But this interview at the consulate is a bit overboard because it cuts out a lot of people from smaller areas of large countries.
“A lot of the Canadians who work as teachers are from the East coast, and the nearest consulate is in Montreal,” she explained. “That’s really far away, and impossible for most people to get to on short notice for an interview that doesn’t guarantee a job.”
English teachers have had trouble finding information about the changes. Many have been told by their local immigration branch that there were no changes, or that the office was unaware of them. This is in spite of a press release which came out last week.
If implemented in December, the move would leave schools struggling to fill vacancies as applicants spend months waiting for police checks and arranging medicals and travel to embassies. It would also discourage hagwon from getting rid of underperforming teachers.
While no one doubts hagwon would boot abusive teachers, those coming in hung over, unprepared and unenthusiastic could be more of a problem. Schools already have a tough time shifting them because their replacement is costly, difficult and time consuming.
Some suspect the extra time and expense of visa application will deter legitimate teachers. “I predict a mass exodus of legitimate, qualified, native-speaking ESL Teachers. They will be replaced mostly by highly transient and unskilled backpackers who will work illegally on tourist visas at premium wages,” said one teacher, asking not to be named.
Mindful of this, the ministry also intends to increase the severity of punishments for those hagwon employing illegal teachers.
But that teacher remains unconvinced. “You’ve got to really want to work in Korea to go through all that mess,” he says. “Those few teachers who are compliant with these new visa regulations will almost certainly be demanding extraordinarily high wages.”
By Paul Kerry
(paulkerry@heraldm.com)
2007.11.07
That’s going to be rough. I live in deep South Texas about six hours drive time from the consulate in Houston. I have no problems with the criminal and health checks. I just don’t know who will evaluate them, but hopefully they will have decent English reading skills.
What worries me is the interview at the consulate. I was treated quite poorly during my first and second trips to the Korean consulate in Houston. They get both U.S. and Korean holidays off, work a few hours a day, and yet, acted like taking my paperwork and answering a few questions was really putting them out and made me wait as they gossiped right in front of me. I wonder just how professional these interviews will really be. Well, we will know one way or another in a few months. I don’t know what I will do if this comes to pass, but it will definitely go in my stay-in-South Korea con list.
I was thinking about this too. What if somebody at the consulate is just having a bad day and deny your vista, when on any other day, they wouldn’t? I think Korea could lose a lot of good teachers who don’t want to be bothered spending their own money to travel far for an interview, and potentially not even get the job.
As usual the politicans haven’t thought this out very well. Limiting supply while demand remains the same or increase is never a good idea.
It sounds like the unintended side effect is going to be a steep increase in salary for teachers, because less foreigners are going to want to put up with the hassle on a yearly basis and dealing with the potential of making the trip to a consulate and being denied.
It’s not going to be worth all the trouble if these regulations come through. I’m glad they recognize there is a potential problem with paedophiles but I’m not sure how an interview vets that problem.
i don’t think it’s going to happen. it’s too much work for all involved. i think it’s just a government and media scare tactic. korean consulates in the US and in canada are far and few. there are only 3 in all of canada (vancouver, montreal and toronto) and the embassy in ottawa. so that’ll be tougher for canadians (especially if you’re from the prairies or atlantic canada).
it’s obviously too exhaustive and expensive to fly back each year. but if there is one thing that the korean bureacracy does well is make things less efficient.