The scope of legal immunity for teachers in safety accidents during field trips is set to expand. Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin announced on the 28th a "Field Trip Support Plan" that exempts teachers from civil and criminal liability for safety accidents occurring during off-site educational activities such as picnics and school excursions, except in cases of intent or gross negligence. Under the current School Safety Act, teachers are exempt from legal liability only when they have fulfilled their safety obligations in accordance with safety accident management guidelines. The Education Ministry plans to pursue a revision of the law in consultation with the National Assembly.
Controversy over management responsibility for field trip safety accidents has been raised repeatedly for a long time. As the current law imposes excessive responsibility on teachers, and as frequent parental complaints have led to a string of lawsuits and criminal complaints, concerns have grown beyond simple safety management responsibility to encompass infringement of teachers' rights. Nevertheless, the Education Ministry has consistently responded passively, taking action to improve the system only after President Lee Jae-myung recently noted, "I hear that picnics and school excursions are no longer being held these days." It is fortunate that measures are being prepared even now, but it is regrettable that the administration scrambles to address problems only after the president points them out.
The reaction of teachers' organizations to the Education Ministry's support plan has been cold. The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA) pointed out, "The Education Ministry's plan creates a double-burden structure in which teachers must not only comply with the 'School Safety Accident Management Guidelines' to be exempt from civil and criminal liability, but must also prove on their own that there was no intent or gross negligence." The federation argued that the measure falls short of relieving teachers' anxiety about criminal prosecution. The Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union and the Korean Federation of Teachers' Unions also criticized it as "a stopgap measure that remains a mere after-the-fact response."
The field trip issue is one facet of the collapse of teachers' rights. Excessive parental complaints and false child abuse reports also intimidate teachers. In a survey conducted by the KFTA last month for Teachers' Day, 67.9 percent of teachers said, "I feel most powerless when teachers' rights are infringed upon." While protecting students' safety and guaranteeing their human rights must be valued, it is unacceptable for responsibility for safety accident management to be imposed solely on individual teachers. Fundamental institutional reforms must follow, including the introduction of a state-responsibility system for field trip safety accidents and the establishment of practical immunity standards covering educational activities as a whole. The Education Ministry's latest measure is only the beginning of restoring teachers' rights.
