In December 2018, professor Park Su-jeong from Chungnam National University conducted a survey about the Probationary Teacher System. It was carried out amongst 506 subjects-teachers, principals, and educational officials in Seoul. 60.1 percent of them agreed that the Probationary Teacher System should be adopted while 20.9 percent disagreed. Currently, students who dream to become a teacher must pass ‘the notorious’ Teacher Certification Examination. Unless the students are placed in an appointment waiting list as soon as they pass the exam, their lives as teachers begin right away.

 If the Probationary Teacher System is implemented, however, teachers who pass the Teacher Certification Examination would not have any time to take a breath. They will still be evaluated as probationary teachers like interns in a company. The assigned probationary teachers must meet all the standards in order to be fully eligible to become formal teachers. If they do not satisfy their assessments, they will be disqualified and have to start a whole year of studying over again.

 The Probationary Teacher System was first adopted as an example by the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education in 1998, but it only lasted for 6 months due to the strong objection of university students who were majoring in the education field. Also, the Chungcheongnamdo Office of Education and the Sejong City Office of Education adopted the system from 2010 to 2013 and in 2014 respectively, but they did not last long like the precedent of the year 1998.

 Currently, it depends on each Office of Education but mostly, forty hours of course job training is mandatory for newly assigned teachers. However, they do not have the chance to experience a real teaching environment during their course job training. Also, its content is being criticized on account of its formality, which gives little help toward new teachers. Therefore, it was pointed out that, since newly assigned teachers have been undergraduates for four years surrounded by theory-centered lectures, it is now time for them to experience the school environment firsthand.

 Professor Park Su-jeong who conducted the survey mentioned above said that it is obvious for newly assigned teachers to have trouble in their school lives because they are inexperienced in various aspects: teaching and guiding students, school administration works, the relationship between parents and local societies, communication between colleagues. Professor Park Su-jeong insisted that implementing the system prior to the new assignment of teachers who just passed the Teacher Certification Examination is necessary.

 Various foreign countries also adopted the Probationary Teacher System. In the United Kingdom and Finland, probationary teachers are being evaluated for a one-year period. France and Australia demand probationary teachers to work for two years before their final assignment so that the government can decide who is more adequate to become a formal teacher in the long run.

 Despite these advantages, implementation of the Probationary Teacher System is still a controversy. What’s concerning is that there is some likelihood that supervisors, such as principals or senior teachers, can behave dogmatic toward probationary teachers. They can take advantage of newly assigned teachers or probationary teachers, using their powerful authority. Even if newly assigned teachers or probationary teachers received unfair tasks or unjust treatment from their superiors, there is no alternative than to obey with reluctance. Being assigned as a formal teacher is totally up to principals or senior teachers who possess a considerable amount of influence on the assessment. Lee Seong-woo, the director of Kyeongbuk Education Innovation Laboratory Kong-Kam, and who has thirty two years of school teacher career, criticized that probationary teachers might become ‘Yes Men’ who have no choice but to obey and participate in the majority of burdensome chores in school.

 According to the survey mentioned above, the degree of which the subjects agreed to adopt the Probationary Teacher System happened to be higher among supervisors, whose average degree was 4.25 on a scale of 5, than among the group of common teachers, whose average degree was 3.36. It tells that negative views toward the competence of newly assigned teachers are prevalent among supervisors. The result demonstrates that there could be some possibility that the assessment toward probationary teachers might be biased, influenced by certain types of subjectivity that may be caused by a generation gap or a rank of an evaluator. It also implies that senior teachers tend to carry negative views upon newly assigned ones. Most importantly, however, soon-to-be-teachers, the very group of people who are directly involved in the evaluation, have been constantly overlooked throughout the course of the survey. In addition, one of the primary categories of the assessment, which is ‘personality’, cannot be digitized with numbers and there are limits on how to evaluate with objectivity.

 Students who oppose the Probationary Teacher System insist that it is unreasonable because they have already fulfilled their teaching practicum during university days, which is mandatory. Some refute that there are some teachers who work as temporary teachers before they pass the Teacher Certification Examination. On account of this reason, they say it is absurd to regard newly assigned teachers lack experience.

 Sharp controversy about the implementation of the Probationary Teacher System is still ongoing and pre-teachers are also sensitive about the issue. Yoo, Won-bin (Sophomore, Dept. of English Ed.) expressed his worry with a different point of view. “I have concern about the Probationary Teacher System. There are same evaluators in every examination area in Teacher Certification Examination, but unlike that, different evaluators vary from school to school who evaluates probationary teachers. It will lack objectivity and consistency.”