When South Korea suffered an economic downturn in the late 1990s following the Asian financial crisis, one business in the country still flourished. What was it? - the English language education business.

It is still flourishing. More and more parents are sending their sons and daughters to English-speaking nations to help their children improve their English language skills. Job seekers are "obsessed with" TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) study. However, despite the effort, South Koreans’ English ability isn’t up to much.

While various ways to enhance Korean students’ English-language ability are being offered, a lawmaker is preparing to submit to the National Assembly a bill for nurturing the quality Korean English teachers under strict teacher-evaluation measures.

The gist of the contemplated bill, initiated by Rep. Lee Joo-ho of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), is the "three-out system" under which English teachers who fail to meet the average score for annual English training three times in five years would be transferred to other jobs.

"Teachers’ capabilities are a prerequisite for the success of English education," Lee, a member of the Assembly’s Education Committee, said during a debate on English language education in the country at the Assembly last week. "Simply speaking, how are you going to expect students to speak English fluently if their teachers cannot speak English well?"

Lee, however, said those having excellent results would get incentives such as opportunities to study in a foreign nation for a year under the bill, modeled after a teacher’s licensing system in Japan.

Japanese teachers are required to get job training every 10 years to renew their teacher’s licenses. Those who fail to qualify in the training program are dismissed or assigned to other public offices under the system, Lee noted.

The first-term lawmaker said he will present the bill to the legislature during its regular session that opens next month after holding forums and gathering opinions from education experts.

Currently, Korean English teachers for elementary, middle and high schools go through a six-month language training program run by the Korea National Education University in North Chungchong Province and the Kyemyung University in Taegu.

But just 400 teachers complete the course each year, as the program is optional. Lee said his bill aims to make the language study program mandatory for English teachers in the country.

There are 32,500 English teachers nationwide including some 6,700 for elementary schools, 11,400 for middle schools, 14,400 for high schools.

According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development in March last year, an average TOEIC score of 272 English teachers participating in the program stood at only 718 points out of a top score of 990, far lower than that of the 841 of new employees at conglomerates and public offices during the same period.

Government data also showed that English teachers able to teach a class only in English accounted for 22.3 percent of the total in 2003. The figure decreased to 19.9 percent in 2004 and 17.6 percent in 2005, while students’ English skills are getting better.

"Because of the lack of teachers’ English ability, schools have to hire native English teachers as assistant language trainers," Lee said. "It is kind of a vicious cycle. The language level of Korean teachers remains stagnant while schools spend a high portion of their budget on foreign teachers."

Of the ministry’s total budget of 682 billion won (some $710 million) last year, about 340 billion won was spent in hiring English-speaking native teachers, while only 6.3 billion won, or 9.25 percent of the budget, was used for training Korean teachers, said the lawmaker.

However, many education experts agreed in principle to Lee’s idea but question the effectiveness of the "three-out system."

"I think the so-called three-out system is progressive enough to provoke teachers’ opposition," Lee Hye-joo, vice schoolmaster of the Sungkwang Elementary School in South Chungchong Province, said during the debate. Lee also heads an association of English teachers in the provinces.

He said the measure has a problem in terms of fairness if such strict rules apply only to English teachers, adding that it also could significantly hurt English teachers’ pride and honor.

The vice schoolmaster said it is too difficult for native Korean teachers to have an excellent command of all four English sectors--listening, reading, writing and speaking.

He proposed that schools assign English teachers to class in accordance with their special quality in English skills and stressed the need to increase English classes to more than three hours per week from the current one or two hours.

According to ETS, the organizer of Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), South Korea ranks 93rd out of 226 countries in the world for TOEFL score and 16th among Asian nations though the country has the largest number of TOEFL exam takers. In the test of spoken English, however, Korea placed 105th out of 108 countries.