Ahn Min-seok ramps up the push for an Office for the Protection of Educational Activities… Students·parents: “The school community should be restored, not teachers’ authority” - 경향신문

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At the forum ‘Office for the Protection of Educational Activities: Why and How Should It Be Created?’ held at the National Assembly on the 25th, Gyeonggi superintendent-elect Ahn Min-seok speaks. Provided by the Gyeonggi Superintendent-Elect Transition Committee

Gyeonggi superintendent-elect Ahn Min-seok announced that he would move in earnest to establish an ‘Office for the Protection of Educational Activities’. His plan is to change the current setupwhere teachers shoulder complaints and lawsuits aloneinto a system in which the office of education takes responsibility. Student·parent groups agreed on the need to protect educational activities but said that the design process must guarantee participation by diverse educational stakeholders.

At the forum ‘Gyeonggi Office for the Protection of Educational Activities: Why and How Should We Create It?’ held at the National Assembly on the 25th, Ahn said, “With today’s forum, I will conclude the period of public discussion and make a decision,” announcing plans to promote measures to strengthen protection of educational activities, including establishing an Office for the Protection of Educational Activities directly under the superintendent. The Office for the Protection of Educational Activities is an organization inspired by the ‘Office for the Protection of Teachers’ Authority’ that appears in the Netflix series <True Education>.

He said he would establish the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities and have a dedicated team at the office of education respond to repetitive and malicious complaints, while unifying schools’ complaint channels so that teachers do not have to handle complaints directly via personal mobile phones or open chats. He also said he would link legal counseling, litigation, and treatment support through an Educational Activities Protection 119 call center, and would work with the National Assembly to pursue revisions to the Child Welfare Act and the Child Abuse Punishment Act.

Participants in the forum ‘Office for the Protection of Educational Activities: Why and How Should It Be Created?’ held at the National Assembly on the 25th pose for a commemorative photo. Provided by the Gyeonggi Superintendent-Elect Transition Committee

At the forum, various views were expressed on why existing systems to protect teachers’ authority are not felt in school settings and on the functions the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities should have.

Kim Se-jun, a teacher at Gugol Middle School in Yongin, said, “The reality of schools now is more dramatic and more devastating than the drama <True Education>.” Introducing an experience from when he served as head of student affairschecking whether a student had been smoking, then receiving a parent’s complaint and even visiting the student’s home to apologizeKim lamented, “The reality of schools is that, at the time we should be thinking about the curriculum, we are thinking about how to avoid complaints.”

The existing systems to protect teachers’ authority have not functioned properly. Lee Hyun-joo, head of the Teachers’ Authority Office at the Gyeonggi Teachers’ Union, presented a union survey showing that although 79% of teachers had experienced infringements on educational activities or malicious complaints within the past three years, only 6.9% had used the Teachers’ Authority Protection Committee. Lee said, “Various systems such as the Teachers’ Authority Protection Committee, legal support, and psychological counseling are in operation, but the on-site sense of their effectiveness is not high,” adding, “That is because there is a lack of a structure in which the office of education shares responsibility when situations arise that are difficult for schools to handle.”

Lee Kyung-ah, a research fellow at the Institute for Democracy, said the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities should not be an ‘punitive organization’ but an administrative support system in which the office of education and the state share responsibility. Lee said, “When an incident occurs, instead of the victimized teacher writing reports as is the case now, the local office of education’s field support team should visit the school to verify the initial facts of the infringement on educational activities, separate the parties, secure evidence, conduct interviews with parents, and even provide consulting to the principal,” adding, “Only then will teachers be able to feel institutional change on the ground.”

However, students·parents argued that protecting teachers’ authority and students’ rights should not be approached as opposing poles, and that not only teachers but the three educational stakeholders (students, parents, and teachers) should actively participate in determining the system’s details.

Do Seung-suk, head of the Gyeonggi chapter of the National Parents’ Association for True Education, said that while agreeing on the need to protect teachers from malicious complaints and indiscriminate lawsuits and accusations, the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities should be designed not as a defense apparatus centered on teachers’ authority but as a system to restore the school community.

“Students’ rights to learn and to life, teachers’ educational activities, and parents’ rights to communication should be specified as equal values, and the standards and decision procedures for communication-related complaints and malicious complaints should be made public,” Do said. Do added, “Do not end the public discussion with a single forum today; a continuous review structure in which students·parents·teachers·experts all participate together should be established.”

Shin Hye-jung, head of the parents’ citizens’ group ‘School Violence OUT’, pointed out that discussions on the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities should not repeat the path of the School Violence Prevention Act. Shin said, “We have already experienced that merely creating laws and organizations cannot protect victims,” adding, “For a system to be alive and functioning, on-the-ground experience must be connected to policy, and to prevent the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities from degenerating into a passing fad, there must be social consensus among the actors who will lead strong governance.”

Jeon Su-min, a first-year studen at Suwon Foreign Language High School, also said, “Protecting teachers’ authority must not move in a direction that suppresses students’ rights,” adding, “I hope the Office for the Protection of Educational Activities will not remain a disciplinary body but will become a mediation body that helps communication among teachers, students, and parents and restores trust.”