Pukyong National University, Fall 1998


   A couple of years ago, a number of very negative articles were
posted on various Internet lists about Pukyong National University,
which is located in Pusan, Korea. There were about three or four
essays written in all by two former teachers at the university,
Peter Ackroyd and Laurie Notch.

  What I want to do in this article is to describe my own
experience of teaching at Pukyong, together with some information
on changing hiring policies at the university level in Korea. In
this way, I hope the readers of the Expatriate will be able to form
a more balanced view of the work situation for foreign instructors
at Pukyong.

   Since I arrived in Korea in December 1995, I have signed three
one year contracts with Pukyong. I am paid a fixed monthly salary
based on a contracted weekly schedule of hours, and am a member of
the English Department. The main reason that I have this status at
the university is that I possess a D. Phil in English Literature
from a good university. 

   There seems to be a general trend in Korea to insist on greater
qualifications on the part of the native English speakers hired at
the University level. The major new requirement is that a teacher
possess an MA in TEFL. The economic crisis has probably interrupted
this development; but as this is a national university, it is
probable that Pukyong is simply being told to follow certain
guidelines when hiring native English speakers. I don't know for
sure, but some Korean professors have more or less indicated this
to be the case. Moreover, at the University of Birmingham M.A. in
TEFL summer school, which I attended in August 1998, I met an
American man who speaks fluent Korean and who has taught
university-level English in Korea since the late 1970s. His stated
reason for being on the course was the fear of unemployment on
account of this new hiring requirement. 

   Since the unification process which was completed in 1997,
Pukyong has greatly expanded its native speaker staff. There are
now ten native English speakers, including myself. All of these
people were initially hired on six month contracts, and are paid
hourly. After they completed the first contract, they were given
the option of signing a one year contract. Most of them did. They
are still paid hourly, however. The reason would seem to be their
lack of an MA TEFL qualification.

   In the summer of 1997, the native speakers moved into a brand
new campus apartment complex. This complex contains 16 single
dwellings and 8 double apartments for the use of married teacher
couples. The complex is also used by the one Spanish, two Japanese
and one Chinese teacher that the university has since hired.
Personally, I think these apartments are an improvement in all
respects, save that of size. They are air conditioned, contain new
washing machines and televisions (now with cable, which I helped to
negotiate through the new Office of International Affairs which
takes care of a lot of our needs now), desks, showers and bath
tubs, beds, both a gas and a microwave oven and refrigerators, plus
a fair amount of storage space. The apartments also have large
French windows which face east so they are well-lit. As I said, the
only drawback is that they are a little on the small size. I prefer
them to the old apartments since the old ones got really hot in
summer. The plumbing in the old bathrooms was also a little
suspect, and the bathrooms were cold in winter. This is not the
case with the new ones. 

   Pukyong was the result of the amalgamation of two separate
national universities, the National Fisheries University of Pusan
and the Pusan National University of Technology, in the summer of
1997. The English department has since expanded quite dramatically.
We now have about 100 students as opposed to about 20 when Laurie
and Peter were here. The average class size has fallen
substantially. This semester, for example, my classes range from
two conversation classes of about ten people each to slightly
larger composition classes of approximately 20 students. I teach
mostly English majors now, and have done since the fusion. This is
also the case with the other native speakers. In other words, there
are no longer classes of around 60 being taught here. The official
view in Korea now seems to be that Pukyong National University
ranks second behind Pusan National University itself in terms of
the education it provides to its students. 


best wishes, 

Dr. Terry Murphy 
Dept. of English 
Pukyong National University