27 Feb 2018
TOPIA Education Reviews
3.3
67% would recommend to a friend
36% positive business outlook
Reviews by job title
14 reviews
1.0
21 Dec 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
- Pay is on time - Only required to work a couple Saturdays per year, almost never asked or expected to work overtime - Pay seems fair
Cons
Typical Korean, antagonistic management style. The director watches all the teachers through CCTV on his monitor. If you do something he doesn't like, such as sit on a desk or even lean against a wall, you will hear about it, but not directly from him of course. The students could be awful sometimes, but I felt sorry for them more than anything - they are ultimately the victims of this broken education system as they have no choice but to attend this horrible, prison-like institute. The curriculum is of horrible quality, outdated, dry, and unrealistic beyond belief in what it asks of the students. The foreign teachers are expected to teach formal debate skills to students who are barely able to string a sentence together. Toxic atmosphere in which all the Korean teachers seem very miserable and backstabbing, except for when they are on the phone with the moms which is when they put on their fake smile and pretend that they love their job. Tiny windowless classrooms with fluorescent lighting that feel like prison cells. Foreign teachers are often overlooked, and seem to be viewed as more of a prop to make the school look more "global," rather than being seen as actual assets. In some ways this is a good thing, because the workload is much lower for foreign teachers since they are expected to be completely incompetent (which is not always inaccurate, unfortunately). However, being viewed as a replaceable object gets pretty old, and dehumanizing over time.
4.0
20 Dec 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
- no issues with being paid in full and on time. - they file your tax return for you. - very nice, spacious studio apartments that are across the street from the academy. - pre-made curriculum and materials. - no issues with receiving severance or reimbursement for the ₩500,000 fee deducted from your last pay (this is deducted in case you've damaged your apartment). - the apartments are in the Hyundai Aitel building which is a modern, well-maintained building with a very convenient location close to numerous amenities. - most of the students are very nice and try hard. - very helpful local staff and coworkers. - a very enjoyable, high end buffet at the end of each term. - no issues with getting red days off. - booking Fridays off with vacation days is very easy.
Cons
- lots of micromanagement. - poor lateral communication. - a workload that keeps steadily creeping up. - vacation days given out piecemeal, so you cannot book a proper holiday. - textbooks are full of errors and unnatural English. - unnecessary, last minute changes to course materials. - lots of tedious data entry. - endless testing and assignments which lead to an excessive amount of marking that is very difficult to stay on top of. - course materials with themes that are often uninteresting to young learners. - constant video surveillance which is used to micromanage workplace behavior.
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