Hwaseong City Develops Marriage Immigrant Women as Childcare Facility Teachers

Hwaseong City is supporting a childcare teacher training program targeting marriage immigrant women to enable them to participate as full-time teachers in childcare facilities such as daycare centers.

The city announced on the 28th that it will conduct a one-year childcare teacher training program in partnership with the Childcare Teacher Education Institute affiliated with Suwon Women's University, and will hold an entrance ceremony for the training program on the 3rd of this month.

According to the city, a total of 9 marriage immigrant women are participating in this training program, all of whom are fluent in Korean, and they succeeded in admission through a 10-to-1 competition rate.

From October to December last year, the city selected 9 final participants capable of completing the education from approximately 100 marriage immigrant women who applied for the childcare teacher training program, through interviews conducted by the Hwaseong Multicultural Family Support Center.

Meanwhile, the childcare teacher training program will run for one year starting with an entrance ceremony on March 3rd through January 2011, including 4 weeks of practical training, with classes held five days a week.

Upon completing this program, participants will obtain a Level 3 Childcare Teacher certification. The city has decided to guarantee employment for all program graduates to secure full-time positions for marriage immigrant women.

Additionally, the city will support 1.6 million won, which is 80% of the 2 million won tuition required for the one-year program, with marriage immigrant women paying only the remaining 20%, or 400,000 won.

A city official stated, “There is a severe shortage of childcare teachers capable of properly educating the increasing number of multicultural family children,” and added, “Through marriage immigrant women childcare teachers, we will not only be able to incorporate diverse values of a multicultural society but also improve social perception toward multicultural families.”