โI heard that the full-time teacher who was in my position is returning to work a day before the holiday. I ended up losing a total of 3.2 million won, including salary and holiday allowance.โ
"You can't be reinstated like that these days. There is a reason, so reinstatement is allowed, but there is no such thing as the old, gentle reinstatement, so don't feel wronged."
These are posts that can often be seen on social networking services (SNS) regarding the so-called โshy reinstatementโ of full-time teachers.
A situation arises in which regular teachers who are on leave for various reasons suddenly return to work before the vacation when there is no work or before holidays when bonuses are paid, and the temporary teachers who took over the work suddenly lose their jobs and do not receive the salary and bonus they had expected.
When a post like this is posted, such a thing happened at one time, but the education authorities are now recommending reinstatement by semester, and teachers also leave comments refuting this, saying that such 'calm reinstatement' is rare in reality.
In fact, educational authorities are preparing guidelines to prevent the practice of returning to work during vacation or repeating leave and reinstatement.
So, has this thing disappeared now?
We looked into the status of teachers returning to school during vacation at elementary and middle schools.
โ Are people still returning early to receive allowances?... Current teachers say, โIt used to be there, but these days itโs almost gone.โ
It has long been said that temporary teachers are harmed by regular teachers who are on leave using the 'trick' of temporarily returning to work only during vacation periods when the workload is light.
Schools pay regular work allowances in January and July and Lunar New Year holiday allowances in January and February, and teachers who took leave to receive these payments are said to be returning to work early.
The part-time teachers claim that this will soon lead to damage to the part-time teachers who are taking their positions.
This is because not only do they not receive the scheduled allowance, but they also lose their jobs before the contract period expires.
In fact, according to the educational authorities' operating guidelines for contract teachers, temporary teachers are hired as replacements for leave, so when regular teachers return to work, their contracts are terminated even if the contract period remains.
If a part-time teacher's working period is less than one year, he or she cannot receive severance pay and is not given a salary increase.
One part-time teacher argued, โFor example, if the contract is terminated due to the reinstatement of a regular teacher during the winter vacation, you will not receive two monthsโ salary during the vacation, holiday bonus, or severance pay that you would receive if you completed one year of service.โ He added, โIf you add up all the financial amounts, the loss will be 10 to 20 million won.โ
Regarding this, current teachers claim that cases like this existed in the past, but these days they have almost disappeared.
Mr. Kim (47), a teacher who has worked at a middle and high school in Gyeonggi-do for more than 20 years, said, "I saw such a case about 10 years ago, but it is rare these days to do it that way."
Another elementary school teacher, Mr. Go (47), also said, โI heard that such a person exists, but I have never seen him in person.โ
Currently, education authorities are recommending that leave be taken on a semester basis whenever possible, taking into account students' right to study, school operation, and issues with temporary teachers.
Materials such as personnel practice and contract teacher operation guidelines of provincial and provincial offices of education also advise that leave of absence should be done on a semester basis and that when hiring contract teachers, hiring contracts that exclude vacation periods are prohibited if the employment period is more than one semester.
โ About 100 cases of early reinstatement per yearโฆ The most common reason for reinstatement is 'extinction of reasons for leave'.
However, it is still easy to find posts on social media complaining about the damage caused by the early reinstatement of regular teachers.
According to actual data from the Ministry of Education, there has been an average of more than 100 cases of early reinstatement per year.
According to the 'Status of early reinstatement of teachers during vacation period' data received from the Ministry of Education by the office of Rep. Kim Moon-soo (Democratic Party of Korea), a member of the National Assembly Education Committee, a total of 296 students were reinstated mid-term during the vacation period (December, January, and July) before the originally applied reinstatement date over a two-year period from January 2023 to March 2025.
By year, there were 98 early reinstatements in 2023, 128 in 2024, and 70 between January and March 2025, with an average of 23 early reinstatements per month in the first quarter of 2025 alone.
Looking at the reasons for early reinstatement, education authorities explained that it is difficult to determine that they were reinstated with the aim of receiving salary or holiday bonuses during vacation, as in the cases mentioned on social media.
When dividing the early reinstatements that occurred during the period by reason, 'extinction of reasons for leave' was the most common at 129 people.
This was followed by โreinstatement to use maternity leaveโ at 84 people, followed by โchange in type of leaveโ at 58 people, and โdesire to return to work early due to other personal circumstancesโ at 25 people.
'Extinction of the reason for leave' means when the reason for initially applying for leave disappears, such as successful pregnancy (infertility/fertility leave), termination of spouse's overseas work (accompanied leave), death of the person being cared for (family care leave), or recovery from illness (sickness leave).
An official from the Ministry of Education explained that this was an unavoidable case because, according to the National Civil Service Act, teachers must immediately return to work once the reason for leave has expired.
The official added that in the case of 'reinstatement to use maternity leave' or 'change in type of leave', there is no harm to teachers on fixed-term leave because they go straight to re-leave without reinstatement.
โReinstatement to use maternity leaveโ corresponds to a case where a teacher who is on parental leave before giving birth, ends the leave, returns to work, and then applies for maternity leave again. Since vacation cannot be used while on leave, employees are reinstated for administrative purposes.
'Change in type of leave' refers to a case where the type of leave is changed and reinstatement is made on paper, such as when a person is on childcare leave and then follows his or her spouse to work overseas, thereby creating a reason for accompanying leave.
In practice, early reinstatement, which may affect part-time teachers, only applies in cases of โother personal circumstancesโ.
This amounts to 7 cases in 2023, 13 cases in 2024, and 5 cases in 2025 (January to March).
Furthermore, 'temporary reinstatement during vacation', which involves returning to work early during the vacation period, working for a certain period of time, and then taking leave again at the start of the semester, was found to be the most frequent, with about 10 cases.
Looking at the status of temporary reinstatement during the vacation period that Rep. Kim Moon-soo's office received from the Ministry of Education, there were 6 cases of temporary reinstatement in 2023, 12 cases in 2024, and 3 cases in 2025 (January to March) with suspicion of 'shy reinstatement'.
An official from the Ministry of Education said, "In cases such as early reinstatement due to other personal circumstances, it is necessary to look at each individual case to know (whether it is an unscrupulous reinstatement). This issue of early reinstatement has been pointed out in the past, and the provincial and provincial offices of education are currently operating a leave system strictly in accordance with related laws."
โ The other side of the controversy over โshy reinstatementโโฆ โThe stability of employment for part-time teachers is a real problem.โ
So, are the complaints of part-time teachers baseless?
Temporary teachers emphasized that the number of cases of using such โsimple leaveโ may have decreased compared to before, but it has not completely disappeared.
Kwon Oh-gyun, policy director of the Part-time Teachers' Committee of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), said, "Many cases of damage are reported around January, when regular attendance allowances and Lunar New Year allowances are released."
In addition, related organizations emphasized that even when it is not a vacation period, there are still many cases where part-time teachers have to quit without completing the contract period due to the early reinstatement of regular teachers, and the trend is increasing day by day.
Park Hye-seong, president of the National Part-Time Teachersโ Union, said, โIf you look at the number of applications for consultation to the union, the number of cases of part-time teachers fired due to the early reinstatement of regular teachers has actually increased compared to before.โ
According to the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union's Fixed-Term Teachers' Committee, the number of fixed-term teachers whose contracts were terminated due to early reinstatement was 61 in 2024 and 71 in 2025 in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do alone.
Related organizations also pointed out that the problem, rather than early reinstatement during the vacation period, is the structure in which the original contract period is not kept and teachers on short-term contracts bear the brunt of the loss.
Park Young-jin, chairman of the temporary teachers' committee of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, said, "The service conditions (for part-time teachers) are similar to those of civil servants, and they are forced to leave unconditionally when regular teachers return." He added, "Shouldn't stability be guaranteed in order to maintain a living?"
When this issue was raised, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission recommended system improvement in 2020, and a regulation was created to require temporary teachers to be notified 30 days in advance of dismissal or to pay at least 30 days' normal wages.
Although it is not reflected in the Ministry of Education's statistics, it is common to set the contract period from recruiting temporary teachers to before vacation, according to an education official who requested anonymity.
This official said, "Childcare leave is a semester-long leave in accordance with the Ministry of Education's guidelines, but in the case of illness leave or family care leave, such damage (due to early reinstatement of regular teachers) often occurs."
โ As the number of students decreases, part-time teachers increase... โStudents also suffer when teachers change during the school year.โ
Changing teachers during a semester or school year also affects students.
Chairman Park Hye-seong explained, "From the perspective of a temporary teacher, relationships with the children he was teaching are cut off overnight, and a situation arises in which he is unable to properly provide the education he had planned, but from the student's perspective, the teacher is suddenly changed."
One temporary teacher asked, "There are schools that only hire temporary teachers for a short period of time before the vacation, but skilled and experienced temporary teachers do not apply for these positions. In the end, teachers with poor evaluations or a history of accidents fill such positions. Is this situation really good for the children?"
Part-time teachers' organizations argued that, rather than taking issue with the early reinstatement of regular teachers, in order to solve the problem, the authorities should step in and ensure that the contract terms of fixed-term teachers are respected even when full-time teachers are reinstated.
Chairman Park Young-jin said, โYou can take childcare leave and return to work early because you have someone to look after your child, and I fully understand the position of regular teachers.โ He also emphasized, โRegular teachers should be able to take leave and return to work at will, and part-time teachers should be able to keep their contract periods.โ
Considering that the number of part-time teachers is increasing every year, it is predicted that such problems will become more frequent.
Due to a decrease in the number of students and an increase in teacher leave, the number of temporary teachers currently stands at about 80,000.
Chairman Park Young-jin said, โThis is because, as a buffer zone for the problem of teacher reductions due to a decrease in the number of students, they are choosing to fill the positions of regular teachers with part-time teachers instead of hiring regular teachers.โ
An official from the Ministry of Education said, "From the perspective of part-time teachers, we want to guarantee 100% employment, but to do so, we must never allow regular teachers to return to work early. There are also difficulties in doing so, so we are trying to find a balance between regular and part-time teachers under the current law."
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