"Gender Equality Education Must Be Reflected in 2022 Revised Curriculum and Textbook Writing"

Incorporate Gender Equality Elements into Subject Curricula
Need to Strengthen Education Office's Role in Gender Equality
Calls for Creating Anti-Sexual Violence Culture in Schools

On the 4th, representatives of civic groups related to the School Me Too movement, who participated in the 'School Me Too Goes to the UN Campaign Launch Press Conference' held at Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno-gu, Seoul, are demanding the government's opinion on the School Me Too movement. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] Since the School Me Too movement, the Framework Act on Education, which mandates systematic gender equality education in schools, will be enforced starting March. It has been pointed out that the 2022 revised curriculum should also reflect gender equality education and that the textbook writing process must be checked to ensure no content violates this principle.

On the 25th, the Ministry of Education will hold a discussion forum titled "Policy Achievements and Tasks in the Education Sector After School Me Too" both online and offline. This forum was organized to disseminate the achievements of gender equality policies in education, such as the revision of the Framework Act on Education pursued after School Me Too, and to identify future tasks.

The Framework Act on Education, effective from March 25, stipulates that the state must establish policies to cultivate awareness of gender equality and sound sexual consciousness, and that gender equality education?including sex education, gender awareness education, and sexual violence prevention education?must be systematically conducted according to guidelines set by the Minister of Education.

Shin Seonmi, Senior Research Fellow at the Korean Women's Development Institute, who presented on "Tasks of School Gender Equality Education After the Revision of the Framework Act on Education," suggested that the 2022 revised curriculum and textbook writing should reflect 'gender equality education' and that a gender-sensitive review of the general curriculum is necessary.

Researcher Shin stated, "Rather than merely delivering knowledge about gender equality, education should permeate the ideology of gender equality throughout school life and be practiced in everyday life at home and in society. It is important to incorporate gender equality elements not only in achievement levels and learning components but also in teaching and learning methods and evaluation methods. Additionally, cases of textbook content violating gender equality and new textbook review criteria from a gender equality perspective should be provided."

Referring to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's operation of a gender equality team, Researcher Shin explained, "It is necessary to strengthen roles such as establishing gender equality teams at education offices. Since the personnel responsible for gender equality education, sex education, and sexual violence prevention education at the school level may differ, coordination measures should be prepared."

There was also a point raised that creating an 'anti-sexual violence' culture in schools after School Me Too is important. For schools to be safe from sexual violence, not only teachers' awareness improvement but also changes in school culture are necessary.

Lee Seonmi, a teacher at the Gyeongsangnam-do Office of Education's Education Research Information Center, emphasized, "Currently, the perspective on responding to sexual violence in schools is shifting from 'case handling' to focusing on the recovery of victims and the community. It is necessary for regional education offices to have specialized personnel dedicated to supporting professional and continuous responses to sexual violence in schools."

Teacher Lee added, "It is necessary to systematize and specify support for the recovery of victims and the community, and to consider introducing a supervisor system that can support and manage the entire sexual violence response process by non-expert teachers to prevent secondary harm to victims during case handling. Also, the introduction of a case meeting system to provide a safe consultative body for sexual violence cases should be reviewed."

This forum allows private members of the Gender Equality Education Deliberation Committee, related experts, and officials from metropolitan and provincial offices of education and universities to participate online.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hye said, "Although many policy efforts have been made to ensure schools are safe from sexual violence and become gender-equal communities after School Me Too, there is still a long way to go. I ask the education community to participate so that gender equality policies in education are more solidly prepared and spread in the field, enabling schools to nurture future talents with human rights sensitivity and gender awareness capabilities."

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