'Controversial Webtoon Praising North Korea Published' Gyeonggi Office of Education "Efforts to Prevent Recurrence"

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education announced that it will thoroughly review its social network service (SNS) channels to ensure that such incidents do not occur again, following the controversy over a webtoon posted on its official SNS depicting North Korean students' school life, which was later deleted amid accusations of praising North Korea.

On the 29th, the Gyeonggi Office of Education stated in a press release, "The Gyeonggi Office of Education's SNS channels have grown into active communication channels with the education community by vividly delivering news from the education field." It added, "We will focus more on creating educational content that everyone can relate to, and strengthen the review system and internal discussions for all daily content to prevent similar incidents from happening again."

Superintendent Lee Jae-jung also said, "I feel responsible for the inadequate management, and we will review the process of posting the story content, correct any mistakes, and strive to prevent recurrence."

The controversy began when the Gyeonggi Office of Education posted a webtoon titled "I envy North Korean friends!" consisting of 10 scenes on Instagram around 7 p.m. on the 26th.

A teacher at an elementary school in the province sent an anecdote about an event that happened with the class during a lesson to the Gyeonggi Office of Education, and a company commissioned by the office produced the webtoon based on it.

The overall content of the webtoon is in the form of a teacher introducing North Korean students' school life to the children. The issue arose when the children in the webtoon reacted to photos of North Korean students going on a picnic?unlike in South Korea, where picnics were restricted due to COVID-19?by saying, "I envy North Korea. They even get to go on picnics."

Furthermore, when the teacher explained that in North Korea, once a homeroom teacher is assigned, they rarely change until graduation, the students responded, "Wow~ then I really want to go to North Korea. I want to be with my teacher for life," and one said, "Raise your hand if you want to go (to North Korea)," which was also depicted.

Some netizens who saw the webtoon criticized the Gyeonggi Office of Education online, including on Instagram, saying ▲North Korean defectors risk their lives to escape ▲(this webtoon) is effectively praising North Korea.

As the controversy spread, the Gyeonggi Office of Education deleted the post around 10 a.m. on the 27th.

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