If you do not graduate from the college of education in the future, it will be difficult to become a teacher of standard subjects such as Korean, English, and Mathematics. This is because the Ministry of Education is pushing for a plan to limit teaching courses in general departments to only second foreign languages and non-subjects.

The Ministry of Education has decided to reduce the number of secondary school teachers who are excessively produced by both educational colleges and other institutions. Therefore, if you do not graduate from the college of education in the future, it will be difficult to become a teacher of standard subjects such as Korean, English, and Mathematics. This is because the Ministry of Education is pushing for a plan to limit teaching courses in general departments to only second foreign languages and non-subjects. 

On December 10th, the Ministry of Education announced a plan to develop a system for fostering elementary and secondary teachers. The main goal is to reduce the number of over-produced secondary school teacher trainees and to train teachers of standard subjects only through the college of education and the department of education. Currently, teacher training institutions that train middle and high school teachers consist of education colleges, some departments of general universities with teaching courses, and graduate schools of education.

The number of secondary school teachers hired this year is around 4,000, but the number of graduates who obtained secondary school teacher certificates by graduating from the teacher training institutions mentioned above is about 20,000. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education decided to drastically reduce the size of the training cohort for teaching courses and graduate schools and decided to train standard subject teachers only in the college of education and the department of education.

Therefore, it is now more difficult to become a standard subject teacher without attending these colleges or department. An official from the Ministry of Education said, “There has been an imbalance in teacher training and appointment, and the social costs incurred by the increase in competition rate due to the appointment congestion were formidable.”

The Ministry of Education also plans to conduct multi-layered personality and aptitude verification to select teachers with the right personality. Factors such as disciplinary records, teaching practice records, and reasons for disqualification in college will be comprehensively evaluated. Acquisition of teacher qualifications is expected to be restricted or impossible if the result of these evaluations is judged to be inappropriate.