[The Editors' Verdict] An Education Superintendent Election Without Education

Kyung-ho Lee, Head of Social Affairs Division

The nationwide local elections on June 1 are an important day not only for electing local government heads and local council members but also for choosing the superintendents of education in 17 cities and provinces. Currently, the superintendent elections in South Korea generally have three characteristics. Due to the high interest in the elections for local government heads or local council members, the candidates and issues in the superintendent elections tend to be overshadowed, making it a "blind election." Voter interest is low, so winning can sometimes feel like a "lottery election." The most notable feature is that candidates are "not affiliated with political parties and are not assigned numbers on the ballot."

Political parties cannot nominate candidates nor coordinate policies with them. This is to ensure educational expertise and political neutrality in the election of superintendents. The ballots do not have candidate numbers, and a "rotating order system" is applied, where candidates' names are arranged sequentially in different orders for each electoral district. For example, if four candidates run, ballots labeled A, B, C, and D types are distributed, each with the candidates' names in a different order. If ten candidates run, ballots from type A to J are issued.

The reason superintendents are called "education presidents" is due to their powerful authority. Superintendents have control over the education budget and key personnel appointments in their regions. Taking the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education as an example, the 2022 main budget exceeded 10 trillion won. Considering the Ministry of Education's 2022 budget is 90 trillion won, this accounts for one-ninth of it. Including additional budgets, expenditures exceed 11 trillion won. Seoul has the main office, 11 education support offices, 29 affiliated institutions, 787 kindergartens, and 2,152 schools including elementary, middle, and high schools, with 75,029 teachers as of April 2021. If the superintendent wishes, they can influence the personnel decisions of tens of thousands of people.

In the case of Cho Hee-yeon, the Seoul superintendent of education, despite the government's policy to convert autonomous private high schools and specialized high schools into general high schools by 2025, he forcibly revoked the designation of autonomous private high schools beforehand, provoking backlash from those schools and ultimately losing consecutive lawsuits.

There is no issue as sensitive and important in our society as education. The superintendent election is a choice for the future, as the saying goes, "Education is a hundred-year plan." Nevertheless, "politics" has dominated over "education." According to a paper titled "Analysis of the Characteristics of the 2018 Superintendent Election" published last year by the Kyungpook National University Social Science Basic Data Research Institute, the clear progressive education policies that emerged with the mass election of progressive superintendents in 2014 highlighted the importance of ideology in superintendent elections. The 2018 superintendent election also became a battleground of ideological confrontation among candidates, following 2014. The paper stated, "The clear ideological confrontation among superintendent candidates led to stark differences in education policies, which became an important criterion for voters in deciding their candidates."

There is a strong analysis that superintendent elections are likely to be decided more by the election environment than by education policies or candidates' abilities. With a regime change after five years, this superintendent election is also unfolding as a confrontation between camps. The conservative camp, having suffered consecutive defeats against the progressive camp, is attempting to consolidate votes through "unification," and the progressive camp is also strengthening unity through "unification" in response. Instead of candidates' expertise, morality, educational philosophy, and pledges, the logic that "failure to unify means certain defeat" has become important.

Unless the election system and culture change, superintendent elections will continue to be decided around political parties this time and in the future. It would be better to acknowledge reality and allow party nominations, or implement a running mate system with metropolitan government heads as in the United States, or seek changes such as a limited direct election system where only stakeholders (schools, students, parents, etc.) vote.

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