Better pay for part-time lecturers

Part-time lecturers at universities nationwide will be given the same status as the regular teaching staff under a new plan of the Presidential Committee on Social Cohesion, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

The plan, announced Monday, now goes to the National Assembly.

Currently, part-time lecturers are hired on a temporary basis and paid an hourly wage. They earn roughly one-quarter of what full-time professors do. But unlike full-time professors, they do not receive benefits such as a pension and medical insurance.

The new plan would guarantee part-time lecturers a minimum of one year of employment, raising their hourly wage from 43,000 won ($38) to 80,000 won. That means a part-time lecturer teaching nine hours per week would earn 22 million won per year, a drastic increase from the current estimate of 10.1 million won per year.

They would also receive health care, unemployment, pension and occupational safety insurance.

The new policy would apply to public universities, but the government plans to offer incentives for private universities to encourage their participation in the plan.

“The government will provide research subsidies to private universities as an incentive,” Goh Kun, the committee chairman, said.

“Top-notch lecturers should be granted at least a minimum standard of living,” President Lee Myung-bak was quoted by his spokeswoman Kim Hee-jung as saying after the president gave his support for the plan on Saturday. “In the long run, [the plan] should also be expanded to private universities.”

Part-time lecturers have not had the same status as full-time professors since 1977, when a policy on the financial stabilization of educational institutes went into effect.

By Namkoong Wook [enational@joongang.co.kr]