The Democratic Party of Korea and the government are stepping up efforts to develop measures against teacher rights violations, including the creation of a dedicated body to protect teachers' rights. Coinciding with the third anniversary of the death of a teacher at Seoi Elementary School and prompted by the recently popular Netflix drama "Cham-gyoyuk" (True Education), the realities of the education field have come back into the spotlight, giving momentum to legislative debate on protecting teachers' rights.
According to the National Assembly on the 24th, Rep. Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party, who chairs the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, recently proposed as the lead sponsor an amendment to the Special Act on Improving Teachers' Status and Protecting Educational Activities, which would establish a dedicated body for protecting educational activities under the Minister of Education. The aim is to create a control tower for protecting teachers' rights by consolidating the functions of preventing violations of educational activities, providing legal support for affected teachers, and responding to malicious complaints in one place.
The Ministry of Education, the responsible department, initially balked at creating a dedicated organization, but reversed its position as teacher rights violations occurred one after another. A ruling bloc official said, "The Education Ministry opposed it on the grounds that establishing a dedicated organization with legal authority could increase its practical burden, but recently the atmosphere has shifted toward actively considering it."
Rep. Baek Seung-a of the Democratic Party, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, also submitted a bill that codifies the responsibility of the state and local governments to protect teachers and establishes a Central Educational Activity Protection Center. The Central Educational Activity Protection Center would carry out overall work to protect teachers' educational activities and guarantee students' right to learn. Rep. Jeong Seong-guk of the People Power Party, a former elementary school teacher, also prepared a bill to introduce a "state litigation responsibility system," under which the state or local governments would step forward as parties to lawsuits in disputes related to teachers' educational activities.
The Democratic Party is also reviewing institutional supplements to address the problem of teachers' legitimate guidance leading to child abuse reports. Teacher organizations are calling for legal revisions, arguing that vague provisions on emotional child abuse under the current law have resulted in repeated malicious reports. However, there are also considerable concerns that this could potentially infringe on students' human rights. Accordingly, the Democratic Party plans to decide whether to legislate after gathering opinions from teacher organizations, parent organizations, and relevant ministries, and reaching social consensus.
