The Democratic Research Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Party of Korea, has proposed establishing a dedicated organization for protecting teachers' rights, called the "Educational Activities Protection Bureau," within the Ministry of Education. The proposal aims to build a state-led protection system, moving away from a structure in which teachers respond directly to malicious complaints and false reports.
According to a Democratic Research Institute policy briefing Thursday, research fellow Lee Kyung-ah presented a plan to establish an Educational Activities Protection Bureau under the Ministry of Education, under the theme "The Question Posed by 'The Matchstick,' Answered with a State-Led Educational Activities Protection System."
"The teacher rights protection bureau in the drama is a fictional institution, but the problems teachers face in schools—class disruption, verbal and physical abuse, malicious complaints, false and repeated reports, and the chilling of student guidance—are real institutional challenges," Lee said. "We must institutionally resolve the structure of placing responsibility on individual teachers and schools' lack of response capacity."
"When teachers hesitate to carry out legitimate student guidance and class management, classroom order and students' right to learn are undermined," she explained. "Protecting teachers' rights is not about expanding teachers' privileges, but a policy to restore an educational environment where students can learn in a stable manner."
The Democratic Research Institute proposed that the Ministry of Education establish the Educational Activities Protection Bureau and entrust it with the role of a central control tower for educational activities protection policy. The organization is conceived to oversee related policies in connection with the teacher rights protection committee, educational activities protection centers, the school complaint response system, student guidance notices, child abuse report response support, and the school violence investigation system.
As core functions, the institute proposed establishing an integrated classification system for cases of educational activity infringement, operating an institutional responsibility system for malicious complaints, supporting responses to child abuse reports, and supporting the recovery of school communities.
In particular, regarding responses to malicious complaints, it argued that cases that chill educational activities—such as repeated complaints, abusive or threatening complaints, and the spread of false information—should be transferred to education offices so that legal review and official responses can be carried out. For serious matters such as obstruction of business, threats, and defamation, the institute explained that a legal support system should be established for filing complaints and requesting investigations at the education office level, rather than by individual teachers.
Lee also proposed that establishing the Educational Activities Protection Bureau would require amending the Teachers' Status Act to create a legal basis. However, she added that "the principle of institutional responsibility is not intended to block parental complaints, but is a mechanism to distinguish between legitimate concerns and acts that infringe on educational activities, and to ensure that schools respond responsibly according to official procedures."
