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Location: 3FL, 712-2 Jest Plaza, Yi-dong, Sangnok-gu, Ansan-si
Phone: 031-437-5757
Website: http://www.topia.co.kr/Ansan/
Founded in: 2009
TOPIA English Zone (Elementary/Middle School) – Ansan: Yi-dong, Gyeonggi-do
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Herald School / CIS/ TOPIA
I was working for Herald School in Ansan for around 17 months. After my first year I was asked to resign and worked out an 8 months with Jake Ku the owner.
After my 17th month working for him he asked for a meeting. He told me that he had just opened a second school and was putting all his money into it so was in a bad financial situation. This meant that he needed to save money and wanted to let a teacher (or two in the near future) go. As I had just over 3 months left on my contract I was the next to go anyway. I was told that on a Wednesday night and that Friday would be my last day. Also he wouldn’t honor the bonus, half that’s months pay and stop all support (i.e. housing, medical) from 7.30 pm on the Friday I finished work. That gave me two days notice to finish me job, move out of one house and find a place to live.
Also, I was helping him out by working in a second school for him in the mornings. He went to this school and took my wages saying that unless I wrote up 120 reports for my students at his school with no pay for my time I could not receive the money from the other school. Wages for classes I had already taught.
From a regular staff or 7 foreign teachers made me the 6th foreign teacher to have left or been made to leave his company on bad terms with no or very little bonus in about a year. I know I should have seen it coming but I was one of only two trained English teachers at the school and had a good reputation with the parents so thought I was safe. Silly me.
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Topia teachers have not been paid in months. Herald School, which was mentioned in the posting, was changed to CIS, short for Canada International School. Both Topia and CIS are owned by Jake Ku. He doesn’t pay his teachers. He fires teachers 11 months into their contracts so that he doesn’t have to pay severance or the return airfare. Only work there if you like being forced to work for half your salary or less each month. Don’t be an idiot and work there. Go to a different hagwon instead. Those schools should be blacklisted on every hagwon website available.
DISCLAIMER: Reliable Teacher Hagwon Review does not verify the statements made in these reviews. These reviews are user-generated content and may or may not be accurate. We do our best to weed out ones that are inappropriate or blatantly exaggerated, but we cannot claim responsibility for any misleading information posted by our reviewers. If there is a review that you believe should be removed, please contact us.
If any of you are offered a job at Topia in Ansan, I’d decline it immediately. Any recruiter who tries to put you there is certainly not trying to help you. The same goes for CIS (short for Canada International School) in Ansan as well. They’re two schools in one. Weird management and lack of pay are the two of the worst problems but definitely not the only problems there.
DISCLAIMER: Reliable Teacher Hagwon Review does not verify the statements made in these reviews. These reviews are user-generated content and may or may not be accurate. We do our best to weed out ones that are inappropriate or blatantly exaggerated, but we cannot claim responsibility for any misleading information posted by our reviewers. If there is a review that you believe should be removed, please contact us.