Things like this are why I cannot in good faith recommend Korea as a place to teach, unless you’re willing to risk a huge amount of BS. Korea has long had a reputation for shady employers in the private education industry (called hagwons), but for most of the time, public schools were sort of a hold out, in that they mostly stuck to the contracts they made with their teachers and were generally good folks to work for. However, this is, as I have heard it compared to, a black eye for the Korean TESOL industry. These teachers have already spent the money to get a visa, their extensive paperwork, most had already purchased plane tickets (which SMOE will now not reimburse), and I’m sure that a few folks even have sold cars, gotten out of leases, etc.
It’s one thing for a sketchy hagwon (cram school) to behave like this, but it’s a whole different bag of cats when the Korean government behaves like this. Firing 100 out of 600 teachers, after they have already been assured a job overseas and gone through all the hassle that entails, just because you were disorganized is really, really not acceptable.
