Veritas English Academy: Tanbang-dong, Daejeon

This hagwon treats their employees like work horses. They have 2 month intensives, twice a year and you are given no additional compensation. You are also required to plan for all different classes and lessons, which are highly technical because you are teaching the TOEFL. He fires people at will if he does not feel that you are doing your job well; although you are given no training. He also does not provide health insurance, does not pay into pension, and in general treats you in a very unprofessional manner.

I worked for this school for two semester periods, the spring and summer of 2011. I taught Elementary, Middle School and High School. In all of my working experience I have never met a headmaster/boss like the one here. I worked at a hagwon prior to this from 2008 to 2010 and really enjoyed my experience there. But that wasn’t the case here at Veritas. Also, I’ve never had such a terrible experience teaching. While I do love the students, and I have a passion for teaching, the conduct of this school and headmaster makes teaching here such a stressful and unhappy experience. Not only do they treat teachers like servants, they also treat the students here terribly, even beating them if they don’t get a high enough grade.

To begin with and the most important thing is that he will fire you without just cause if you show any type of assertiveness or questions him. He wants you to be a passive worker/workhorse that has no opinion of your own. It is impossible to work at a job where you have the fear lingering in the back of your head that you can be fired not because you can’t do the job well, but because of the headmaster’s particular mood that day.

Also, the headmaster has made and broken so many promises to me. He promised me a raise, a promotion and an easier schedule. I never got any of these things. They were pretty much sweet nothings he whispered into my ear to manipulate me to do his bidding.

The school also just throws you into the deep end right away. They assume you should know how to do EVERYTHING without telling you how to do anything. You have to make your own syllabus, make your own homework, grade, without telling you how to do any of these things. I literally had to learn things as I was teaching my classes and that’s only because I asked.

Also, he shows favoritism to teachers/staff he likes. I worked almost double the classes (and classes that students were charged more) compared to this one teacher, and I didn’t get a bonus, while this teacher who he favorited did. This is very frustrating especially when you worked more hours, taught harder classes and was even promised a bonus and in the end you get nothing.

It’s hard to believe that a school can be this bad, but I want to save you the headache and heartache. If you can work somewhere else, I urge you to do so for your own sake. This school will suck you dry and then throw you out once they don’t need you.