Signed and stamped: How to enjoy life on an EPIK contract

The EPIK (English Program in Korea) contract can be frustrating at times. Yet, it also opens a world of opportunities if you understand it well. So here is how to enjoy life on an EPIK contract.

Sometimes it can feel like you’re signing your life away when you get a job. You put your name on the dotted line, and suddenly you’re working long hours, with no holiday and low pay. But understanding your contract fully can help you see that there are many ways to enjoy life within the confines of a work agreement. And while the EPIK contract has some limitations, it can grant you the freedom to work in Korea rent-free. Plus, the government will back you with a VISA for a year. And if you haven’t applied yet (why?!) read learn how to here.

Understanding your holiday time, pay grade, apartment features and teaching responsibilities can highlight the scope for freedom in your work agreement. And most importantly, being clear about parts of your contract diminishes the chance of you being overworked and mistreated. Without further ado, let’s have a little look at some of the most important details of the contract.

Overview of the contract

EPIK will present you with a pretty standard contract with many of the details you’d expect to find – your pay level, job role and expected conduct at work. But this doesn’t mean you can just skip through all the fine print. Some important areas to note are:

• Sick pay: We all feel a little rough from time to time. Sometimes we just need a day to recover. EPIK will give you eleven paid days of sick leave. However, you’ll need a doctor’s note on the fourth day (even if the sick days are not consecutive). Luckily, if you’re genuinely ill, this note will be easy to come by. Yet, it is something to be aware of.
• Payday: Your school should pay you on the 25th of every month (or the preceding business day if the 25th is on a weekend or holiday). If you don’t receive any money, you should gently remind your school to pay you – remember, everyone forgets things sometimes. Note that you’ll have to wait a whole month once you arrive in Korea before you get any Korean won in your account. Therefore, make sure you’re ready to get by with some cash for the first month.
• Benefits: In addition to your regular pay, EPIK is generous with its entrance, settlement, renewal allowance, and completion bonus. This extra money can be very helpful for paying for your flights in and out of the country. With these benefits, you can worry less about putting money aside to pay for your big move. 

It’s important to note that not every EPIK contract will be the same. Firstly, they may vary slightly from province to province, particularly the sections concerning your apartment appliances and pay levels. The contract may also change from year to year. It’s always safest to read it thoroughly again if you decide to renew. This prevents any pesky clauses that you weren’t expecting catching you out. Lastly, all of the benefits and stipulations of the EPIK contract are meaningless if you don’t uphold your side of the bargain. It goes without saying that you should be professional, on time and on top of your lesson prep. If you do that (which I’m sure you will), you and EPIK will get along just fine. 

Holiday time

Everyone needs a break sometimes. This is even more true when you’re singing your ABCs in front of a class all day, five days a week. But given that you have a duty to these students, you can’t swan off to Bali on any random Tuesday in the school year. You need to plan your vacation carefully. You have twenty-six days of paid vacation at your disposal so use them wisely. Most teachers will spread these days between the winter vacation (January to February) and the summer vacation (July to August). But it might not be as simple as taking thirteen days in the colder months and thirteen days when the weather gets hotter. There are three important things to consider:

1. The winter vacation is usually considerably longer than the summer holiday. Therefore, you might want to use more vacation time at the start of the year. This ensures you don’t have too many days left over when you get to August.
2. You might have winter and summer camps during school vacation time. These English programmes usually last a week or two. Surprise, surprise, your obligation to these English camps is written in your contract. And since your vacation time isn’t allowed to interfere with any scheduled teaching, you’ll have to play a fun balancing game with your school about the length of your camps and when you can take time off.
3. The saving grace of the academic year is the national holidays littered into the term. You’ll have occasional days off for events like Children’s Day (May 5th) or Labour Day (May 1st). You might even get some long weekends for Chuseok and Seollal. On the other hand, your school might throw in a couple of Principal’s Discretionary Days or allow you to leave early on Sports Day or the last day of term. The difference is that you WILL need to use your vacation day for these hours out of school.

Unfortunately, you’ll be playing Goldilocks throughout the semester to make sure you don’t use too many or too few vacation days. I recommend tucking a few days away. Additionally, try to stay on top of how many hours of holiday you’ve used. Then you won’t be disappointed when you try to book your next vacation and find you have no days left. With this knowledge in hand, you can take advantage of your vacation to its fullest and travel far and wide in your breaks.

Pay

The EPIK pay is not much. Truthfully, you might be able to earn more money by looking into English academies instead of public education. However, this doesn’t mean that the wage is unlivable, especially given that Korea is a relatively cheap country to live in. With conscious spending, you can save a substantial amount of your pay every month – a nice amount of pocket money to go back home with. Speaking of which:

1. Keep in mind your finish date and think carefully about when to send cash home. Apps like Wire Barley are great for sending some of your wage around the world. However, these applications will cap you around five million Korean won a day. You might not to be able to send all your savings at once. 
2. If you don’t leave Korea after one year, you’ll see your income level rise, meaning sticking with EPIK can be beneficial. This increase means the longer you live in Korea, the easier it becomes to save money. Alternatively, arriving with a teaching or Master’s degree will help to bring in the bigger bucks from the outset.
3. You can earn a little extra spending money by working in a rural location or by having more than one school. Knowing these stipulations of the contract might sway your choice of placement when applying to EPIK, as Seoul is good fun but isn’t necessarily the best place to save your moolah.

Sadly, the amount in your contract is never going to be the amount you see in your bank account at the end of the month. This is because your school will deduct money for things like health insurance, pension and school lunches. Don’t be disappointed that you’re not walking out with what you expected. Additionally, when you look at your paycheck in April, you might see a smaller number than usual. Unfortunately, this is the month when your health insurance premiums will be deducted for the year. Knowing where unavoidable expenses arise can give you peace of mind and can help you see your saving prospects realistically. 

Apartment

When walking into your apartment for the first time, be prepared for your heart to drop. You might look around and have one room, a mattress on the floor and a bathroom covered in mould. Okay. This is a worst-case scenario. The likelihood is that you won’t encounter this situation. I walked into a room with plenty of space for me, some nice bits of furniture and even a place to dry all my washing. But I couldn’t settle in right away. I had to think about my contract:

1. You should find all the appliances that your school is supposed to supply under the housing section of your work agreement (although this list might differ from province to province). The inventory will probably include things like a bed, a refrigerator and maybe a TV. If anything is missing, inform your school immediately. They should get right on it – the contract ensures that they do so after all. 
2. In the same vein, look for damage in your apartment. Maybe your wallpaper is crusty or a door handle is hanging loose. Take a photo and send it to your co-teacher. Making your school aware of these defects ensures you won’t be held liable for damage when you leave. Your school might even get around to fixing it quickly.
3. When your apartment is truly the pit of hell, your contract allows you to take a stipend and make a dash for it. You’ll be able to take the 400,000 won housing allowance and find an apartment upgrade on apps like Zigbang. Knowing you have this option vastly changes your living situation, particularly if you stay more than one year and feel as though you could improve your quality of life in Korea with a housing change.

I would compare a lot of EPIK housing to student accommodation. Small but livable. Understandably, some people will need a little more from their house than EPIK can provide and will be keen to jump into Korean real estate. Only note that many apartments will make you lay down a huge key deposit (which you should get back at the end of your rental agreement) so it’s good to have some cash in the bank before making this decision. It just goes to show how understanding your contract can open (apartment) doors for you in South Korea.

Responsibilities

One of the first things your EPIK contract will lay out for you is your duties as a guest English teacher. The wording can be a little loose. Therefore, let me highlight your responsibilities and the things you shouldn’t have to deal with:

1. In your role, you should ‘assist’ a co-teacher in scheduled English lessons and may ‘lead’ lessons outside of the curriculum, including after-school classes and English camps. Therefore, you should not be teaching the textbook alone. Unfortunately, many teachers do end up teaching lessons without support or may find their co-teacher disappearing midway through a class. It’s understandable as many co-teachers are very busy; however, if you find that you’re becoming overwhelmed and feel a little lost, you can use your contract to get the help you need.
2. If you’ve found yourself teaching over twenty-two instruction hours a week, you should receive supplementary pay on top of your usual wage. Because of the difference between each schooling level, this might not be twenty-two hours but instead be twenty-two 40-minute classes.
3. This is sneaky but the contract never states a minimum number of class instruction hours that you should be doing. If you find that you’re not doing the full twenty-two classes a week, don’t feel bad at all. Go on and enjoy that little bit of extra time off. 

The responsibilities and duties section of the contract is the fuzziest part of your work agreement. It’s difficult to understand where your obligations as the guest teacher start and end, and where your school should pick up the slack. Schools can make mistakes and misunderstand the EPIK rules too. Don’t be scared to politely inform your co-teacher if you think you’re being overworked in any way. Enjoy life on an EPIK contract by first understanding that the contract is there to protect you and you can use it to your advantage. 

Don’t sign your life away

The EPIK rules are a little tight sometimes. You might be upset when you first realise you have to waste a day’s holiday because your school is closed, or when you reach April and you have a lower paycheck than usual. This is where reading your contract carefully and understanding it fully can save you from some disappointment. Although it may seem like there are a lot of conditions that you have to follow, the EPIK contract also gives you great freedom to travel and save some money.

This is a trusted document, so you should have no problems when using this bunch of papers to try and get a VISA in Korea. Although signing on the dotted line might be a scary thing to do, I recommend going through EPIK to start your journey in Korea or as an expat in general. As long as you read the details carefully, you’ll have a whale of a time.