Korean Educational Development Institute(KEDI)

Providing high quality instruction to each and every student has been a significant issue of global concern. However, the issue that out-of-field teaching could lower the quality of instruction has been rather neglected in Korea. For various reasons, students are often taught by out-of-field teachers who are not qualified to teach due to the mismatch between professional expertise and teaching subjects. In this study, the realities of out-of-field teaching practice over five core subjects (Korean, English, math, science, and social studies) at Korean secondary schools are examined to understand in what academic subjects, school types, school levels, school sizes, and community types it takes place in and to what extent. The statistical analysis of 1,410 secondary school teachers sampled across the nation shows that out-of-field teaching is more prevalent in science and math, in public schools than private schools, in lower secondary schools than upper secondary schools, and in smaller schools than large schools. Any distinct tendency is not found for community types. The results of this study imply that out-of-field teaching is serious enough to require immediate government intervention. The Korean government should take some remedial actions to raise the quality of instruction provided by individual teachers.