Many of the government-subsidized English-teaching towns that sprung up across the country in the last decade are grappling with growing deficits due to a shortage of students, resorting to using the campuses for other purposes to stay afloat.
Since the first so-called "English Village" opened in 2004 in Gyeonggi Province, 32 such mini towns were established in suburban areas to give students an opportunity to learn English from native speakers in an exotic environment where speaking Korean is banned.
The linguistic experiment was pioneered in a country where English proficiency is considered one of the core skills to enter prestigious schools and move up the social ladder, encouraging local governments to race to build up more English-speaking villages.
Less than a decade later, however, many of the English villages are struggling to attract enough students to make ends meet, while some local governments have passed the management rights to private operators.
For example, the English town in Paju, near the western border with North Korea, had recorded 10.4 billion won ($9.1 million) of deficit in the last three years since 2009. The Gyeonggi provincial government had to make up the loss with its budget during the period.
Other municipal governments, including Daegu and Incheon, also used taxpayers' money to cover deficits in the last couple of years.
Officials attributed their financial difficulties to the oversupply of such facilities and lack of quality programs to meet expectations of students and parents.
"There are too many English villages. If students flock to one village, others suffer from shortage of students," said a Gyeonggi provincial government official in charge of the English village project.
Parents complain that short-term courses are not enough to improve English proficiency, while months-long programs are more expensive than sending their children to English-speaking countries, like the Philippines, for similar courses.
"How much English can children learn in four or five days?" a 44-year-old mother of a middle-school freshman said. "It may be better to send kids to private language schools instead."
In an effort to stanch deficits, the Paju English Village recently set up camping sites and rail bikes to attract more family members and tourists. It is also operating language programs for company officials, teachers, soldiers and college students, according to its Web site.
Another English town, funded by the Gyeonggi provincial government and operated by a private institute, has been under police investigation over its costly language program. The institute charged 15.4 million won per student for an eight-week program to prepare for the SAT, a U.S. college entrance exam, drawing criticism that the public-funded village only offered programs available to students from rich families.
An English village on the southern resort island of Jeju suspended operations this summer after parents strongly complained about the quality of classes and demanded that their tuitions be refunded.
Experts say it is time to develop new business models to utilize the infrastructure and provide better programs that can attract students from both inside and outside the country, taking advantage of the popularity of Korean pop culture in other Asian countries. (Yonhap)
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