A non-public servant education worker working in a public kindergarten in Chuncheon city tells that she is not looking forward to school vacations in winter and summer at all. Instead she is always engulfed with the concerns about her workload during the vacations. During the school semester she can support the class teacher and carry out the assigned work, but she has to do all the tasks of students caring, catering and emergency for herself alone during the school vacation period.

During the semester, class teachers take care of children in the morning and contingent non-public servant education workers are responsible for after-school classes in the afternoon. However, while during the vacation period class teachers take holidays, contingent education workers get to work and take full responsibility for children's education, catering and safety without class teachers. To make matters worse, the number of children's attendance during the vacation changes little.

Both class teachers and contingent education workers work 8 hours a day including 4 hours of teaching. During the semesters, their working days are 180 days a year the same for both. However, during the vacations, contingent workers have to take care of all tasks without adequate rest and break time. Their teaching hours reach 1,360 hours a year which is close to double the 720 teaching hours for class teachers. Contingent education workers demand the introduction of two-shift work system during the vacation period.

reported by Yoon Ja-eun
translated by Kim Sung-jin