SOUTH KOREA: 1,219 part-time lecturers dismissed

13 September 2009

Education ministry statistics show that more than 1,200 part-time lecturers at 112 universities in South Korea have been dismissed this autumn, seemingly as a result of the Irregular Worker Law that requires employers to move part-time workers into regular positions after two years, reports The Hankyoreh. The dismissals have been met by growing calls for a system-wide solution to restore part-time university lecturers to their teaching positions.

According to data from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, a total of 1,219 dismissed part-time lecturers were reported by 112 universities that recently submitted data. The figure from all 200 universities nationwide is expected to reach several thousand. The 80 private universities that reported data dismissed the most lecturers, 1,208, while the 32 national and public universities dismissed only eleven.

Thos dismissed are instructors who had lectured for four consecutive semesters prior to this autumn term, but who do not possess doctoral degrees. Since they have been lecturing for two years, the required shift of irregular workers to regular positions applied in their cases. The Irregular Worker Law does not apply to those with doctorates, as they are classified as specialists.
Full report on The Hankyoreh site

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