Following Last Year... All 114 Successful Candidates for Seoul Teacher Appointment Are on Standby

Five Successful Candidates from Last Year Still Waiting After One Year
Mid- to Long-Term Teacher Supply Plan to Be Announced Next Month

On the 16th, Newsis reported that all 114 candidates who passed the public elementary school teacher appointment exam in Seoul in January this year have not been assigned positions. This phenomenon, where successful candidates wait over a year for appointment due to the government's policy of reducing teacher quotas, has been repeated.

Those waiting for placement are not only the 2023 successful candidates. Five candidates from the previous year have been waiting for placement for a year.

This is not the first time such a phenomenon has occurred. In February last year, all 216 successful candidates in Seoul were also not assigned to schools in March of the same year.

According to an analysis of Ministry of Education data by independent National Assembly Education Committee member Min Hyung-bae, since 2017, successful candidates in Seoul have had to wait an average of 15.6 months, about 1 year and 4 months, until appointment.

On the morning of the 30th, at Gwangjang Elementary School in Gwangjang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, where the indoor mask mandate was lifted, students wearing masks and those without masks are waiting together in the classroom for the start of class. Photo by Huh Younghan younghan@

Even though the number of those waiting for appointment has decreased compared to September last year (186 people), considering that the number of successful candidates in this appointment exam was significantly reduced compared to previous years, the seriousness of the situation remains.

The number of elementary school teacher appointments in Seoul has been rapidly decreasing every year, falling below 30% of the number three years ago. The 2018 academic year was the year when the 'appointment crisis' occurred, with the number of appointments reduced by more than half compared to the previous year (813 people).

Next month, the Ministry of Education plans to complete consultations with related ministries and announce a new mid- to long-term teacher supply and demand plan to be applied from next year through 2027.

Although overcrowded classes are still an issue in private education-concentrated areas in Seoul, due to low birth rates and population outflow to new towns in the Gyeonggi region, some schools are closing, such as the former Hwayang Elementary School in Gwangjin-gu recently.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.