At my high school for the past two years, there have been eight of each grade (1,2,3). Korean teachers across Jeollanamdo have been laid off and as a result, high school first graders have been compressed into seven classes at my school. I now teach fifteen classes a week instead of sixteen. Both classes I visited yesterday had around thirty seven kids on average per class in them. Yowza! But there is a silver lining to a larger class size. I will finally have Korean teachers in class to help me with teaching and coteaching which will be a very welcome change from teaching solo the past two years. The downside to a much larger class size is students will get much less time with a teacher than before and (perhaps) a slightly reduced quality of education. I also feel for their homeroom teachers who have even more kids and even more responsibility as well.
I don’t know about cities outside of Mokpo and whether this is the norm at other schools but all my friends teaching in high schools have said that their first year classes have been cut down to seven as well. I would be interested in hearing what other people are experiencing.
