Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education Announces School Democracy Index Survey Results

Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education announced the results of the School Democracy Index survey. Photo by Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Jun-kyung] Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education held the ‘School Democracy Index Survey TF Council’ on the 23rd and announced the results of the index survey for realizing school democracy.

This index survey was conducted over four weeks from October 26 to November 20, with a total of 26,473 participants including faculty, students, and parents from 24 democratic citizenship schools operating democratic citizenship education programs and 199 schools wishing to participate in the province.

The Office of Education diagnosed the curriculum and the level of democratic school culture across three areas: school culture, school structure, and democratic citizenship education practice.

The survey results showed that the comprehensive school democracy index of Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education was 80.6 points. By category, school culture scored 80.5 points, school structure 81 points, and democratic citizenship education practice 80.3 points, with school structure being slightly higher.

By respondent type, faculty scored 85.4 points, higher than parents at 75.8 points and students at 73.1 points. Parents and students scored more than 10 points lower than faculty, indicating a difference in the perception level of school democracy between faculty and students.

Students gave a high rating of 80.3 points to ‘parent participation,’ but rated ▲democratic communication culture ▲sharing and evaluation of values ▲formation of democratic values lower.

Parents highly evaluated the attitude and language of respect when dealing with school faculty in the ‘self-assessment - school culture (88.4 points)’ category. On the other hand, the ‘self-assessment - democratic citizenship education practice (70.6 points)’ category received a low evaluation for participation in various activities for educational change and development at school.

Faculty gave the highest evaluation of 90.5 points for ‘respect for basic human rights’ and the lowest at 81 points for ‘teacher authority.’

Lee Byung-sam, Director of Democratic Citizenship Life Education Division, stated, “It is unreasonable to generalize these index survey results to the entire Jeonnam region. We hope that this will be used as reflective data for each school unit’s educational community to self-assess school democracy and find alternatives, rather than for evaluation or comparison.” He added, “We will pay greater attention and support to fostering a democratic school culture of autonomy, communication, and cooperation, and realizing school autonomy.”

Meanwhile, Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education plans to conduct a school democracy index diagnosis for all schools in the province next year in accordance with the revised ‘Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education School Democratic Citizenship Education Promotion Ordinance’ amended last July.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.