Busan Office of Education Creates Schools Where Everyone Is Equal and Free from Sexual Violence

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] The Busan Metropolitan Office of Education announced on the 22nd the ‘Five-Year Basic Plan for Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence’ to create schools free from sexual harassment and sexual violence and promote gender equality.

This plan aims to establish measures and response foundations to eradicate sexual harassment and sexual violence within schools and to create safe schools from new types of sexual crimes such as digital sex crimes.

The plan focuses on four tasks with the goal of ‘a gender-equal culture created together by the community’: ▲creating a gender-sensitive educational environment ▲activating school gender equality education ▲enhancing student sex education ▲strengthening support systems to eradicate sexual violence.

To create a gender-sensitive educational environment, the Busan Office of Education will establish a Gender Equality Committee within the city education office and strengthen gender impact assessments and cooperation with related organizations.

Training to improve gender awareness among faculty and staff, including gender equality, will also be strengthened, and in particular, a workshop to cultivate gender sensitivity for school principals will be newly established to hold small-group training sessions analyzing cases.

Additionally, gender sensitivity training will be included in the qualification training courses for new faculty members, first-grade senior teachers, and vice principals to continuously improve faculty members’ gender sensitivity and their capacity to handle related issues.

Efforts will also be made to foster a culture of gender equality in daily life by establishing school gender equality education plans. A total of 20 schools?10 elementary schools, 5 middle schools, and 5 high schools?will operate as ‘Gender Equality Focus Schools.’

To support gender equality education, the themes of the visiting student sex education program will be diversified and the support targets expanded.

Furthermore, digital sex crime prevention education will be provided to 500 classes in schools that wish to participate, and visiting gender equality education will be conducted for 700 classes. Also, before third-year students at specialized high schools begin field training, ‘Sexual Harassment Prevention Education through Case Studies’ will be conducted.

Busan Office of Education.

In addition, to establish a systematic sex education plan within the curriculum, sex education programs will be supported using a focused grade system for sex education and the middle school free semester system.

The education office will also strengthen the support system to eradicate sexual violence by operating a ‘Sexual Issue Handling Support Group’ composed of 50 experts including lawyers, labor attorneys, and sexual human rights citizen investigators.

The support group will assist in handling sexual harassment and sexual violence cases involving school faculty and staff, provide psychological counseling, medical, and legal consultations for victims, and serve as external expert members of the school sexual grievance review committee.

Ha Yun-su, Superintendent of the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, said, “This plan was established to foster a gender-equal culture created together by the community,” and added, “We will do our best to implement the plan thoroughly so that our students can nurture their dreams in safe schools free from discrimination, stereotypes, and sexual violence based on gender.”

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