Seoul's top education officer Cho Hee-yeon greets President Moon Jae-in during a recent education-related function in Seoul. The progressive educator is bidding for re-election. / Yonhap



By Oh Young-jin



Native English speakers are looked at as pawns in top Seoul educator Cho Hee-yeon's effort to be re-elected in the June 13 local elections.



The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, of which Cho is Superintendent, last week revealed a plan to hire 100 native teachers to service all 561 public elementary schools next year.



This plan goes against the key English-related policies.



Present policies include the continued reduction in the number of native teachers. In 2014, they numbered 592. The number tumbled to 470 in 2015, to 404 in 2016, to 388 in 2017 and to 377 this year.



The reductions have been made for several reasons.



First, education authorities believe Korean teachers are good enough, making native assistants unnecessary. Also, policy makers have agreed that the budget for foreign teachers should be put to a better use.



Second, news of foreign teachers' crimes also lent impetus to such a move. For instance, 11 foreign teachers have been punished for drug use, sex crimes and battery.



In a recent survey of teachers in Gwangju, about 71 percent believed that native speakers were not cost effective for such reasons as incompetence, attitude problems and inexperience.



Now, Cho's Seoul education office is making a U turn in an attempt to address parents' concern that their children will fall behind in English because of a ban on extra-curricular English lessons for first and second graders.



These after-school lessons were aimed at helping the children learn English at little extra expense and to close the gap with well-to-do children who can afford expensive private tutoring.



With its reinforcement plan, the education office puts economy ahead of quality.

New native teachers are paid 2 million won a month, the lowest pay grade, with the highest earning 2.7 million won.



Cho's plan looks like a makeshift vote-getting scheme, and it will not satisfy the needs and expectations of the parents and their children.



