A Study on Dilemmas of Part-time Instructors according to the Policies of Korean Minister of Education - Focused on Three Nat’l Universities in Seoul Metropolitan City

Joh, Jong Ho

Korean Journal of General Education 2015;9(4):111-139.
Published online December 30, 2015.

Jong Ho Joh

교육부 정책에 따른 시간강사의 딜레마 연구

조정호

Abstract

This paper is designed to study dilemmas of part-time instructors (PTIs) according to the policies of Korean Minister of Education with focused on three national universities in Seoul metropolitan city. These days, PTIs suffer from the dilemma situation between their safeguards of status and suspension from university prior to enforcement of so-called “PTIs law and regulation” of Korean Minister of Education. General education college, in this situation, depends largely on PTIs because of both wide range of subjects and insufficient full-time faculties. Nevertheless Korean Minister of Education has made some policies PTIs against general education college. It concerns that the policies will cause negative side effects. The result of this paper, concerning these, shows that the policies of Korean Minister of Education relating to PTIs may be improper for both general education college and part-time instructors. The policies can create new problems that insufficient number of courses/subjects will be offered to students in general education college. Further all the universities, under this situation, have been swayed by national assessments of quality of general education curricular that are connected with financial support of government. It indicates that there are some misalignments between realities of universities and policies of Korean Minister of Education. Therefore we need to recognize both limitations of existing policies relating to both PTIs and universities. It is desirable that we search for a new kind of safeguards of status of PTIs and comprehensively of the status, rights and privileges of most PTIs so as to gradually reform continuing problems concerning them. Also various guidelines may be needed to assist universities including general education colleges in setting appropriate standards for the treatment of general education PTIs in terms of their salary and of security of employment.

Key Words: part-time instructor (PTI), policies of Korean minister of education, national university, quality of general education, safeguards of status of part-time instructors