The study is to propose measures to improve working environment of childcare teachers in Seoul based on their current substandard labor conditions.
The working environment is analyzed and summarized in four as follows: first, childcare teachers in Seoul appear to sign an employment contract in accordance with Labor Standards Act not in an initial stage of employment but in an evaluation period for accreditation, and, therefore, only 86% of the childcare teachers have the signed employment contract. Second, there exists a large gap in payment between governmentsupported facilities and those not supported due to separately applied, double standard. Also, there is no difference in salary among the different levels of education, resulting in elite manpower not seeking a job in this industry or leaving one’s job, so it seems that human resources are not fairly composed in different types of childcare centers. Third, because operating hours of childcare centers do not correspond to regular working hours so childcare teachers suffer from long labor hours affecting the quality of service with limited accessibility of working parents. Fourth, the lack of system for arbitration and protection of rights appears to boost conflicts within working place leading to high turnover rate.
In this vein, the study proposes measures for improvement as follows: first, it should introduce reinforced monitoring system by preparing Seoul standard employment agreement to be signed at the time of employment. Second, to reduce long working hours and heavy workload, various measures should be introduced such as effective, not-exclusivelyappointed teacher system, effective use of teacher assistants, streamlined paperwork, publishing and distributing booklet for parent etiquette, etc. Third, it should form an organization exclusively for childcare teachers (planned) and adopt ombudsperson system for childcare. With its adoption, if civil complaint is reported by an ombudsperson who works in ‘online community’ or local neighborhood such as concerning non-transparent operation of childcare centers and infringement of rights of childcare teachers, specialists in charge including consultant or certified labor lawyer take care of counseling or adjusting conflicts. In this sense, there is a great hope that these measures could lead to a systematic and focused system for relief of rights of childcare teachers and for checks on non-transparent operation of private childcare centers.