Expert Info
on 14 Oct 2012
For the last two months my daughter has been working as an English teacher in South Korea. The atmosphere at the school is very stressful and it's not what she expected at all. The owner of the school communicates by using scare tactics and everything the teachers do is wrong. To make a long story short, my daughter feels threatened and is very unhappy and she's ready to come back to the US, before her contract ends. She doesn't feel that she can talk with anyone at the school about this, so she'll be leaving without their knowledge. Will she have any problems getting out of the country?
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Don't worry! She won't have trouble getting out at all, especially if all she wants to do is leave and not come back.
The only thing she might have trouble with is returning to the country on the same visa if the visa is single-entry and not multiple-entry.
Leaving might not be her only option though. In South Korea your work permit must be sponsored by a company, so she might have trouble getting permission from the company to switch to another job. It is possible for her to find another teaching job in South Korea and have them help her secure a new visa so she can change jobs - a short visa run to Hong Kong and back is all that's needed.
It's a pity she's landed in a bad school - it can happen. I personally have friends who taught in South Korea and loved it, and other friends who left after a couple of weeks they hated it so much! Thousands of teachers head from the US, Canada, South Africa and UK to South Korea and have a great time - see this article and this one. I'm not sure if she'll be able to return to South Korea, but if her perception of teaching overseas hasn't been completely soured, she could try again in Japan, Taiwan or Thailand next time.