Party and Government "Promote Revision of Student Rights Ordinance and Improvement of Civil Complaint Response System"

Lee Ju-ho ""Institutional Improvements for Establishing Teacher Authority, Including Student Life Guidance Regulations""

On the 26th, Education Minister Lee Ju-ho expressed his intention to protect teachers' rights by improving student life guidance regulations and revising student human rights ordinances.

At the party-government consultation held at the National Assembly that day, Minister Lee said, "This (party-government meeting) was prepared to meet the expectations of teachers who wish to restore teachers' rights and to lay a new foundation for revitalizing public education," adding, "We need to improve systems such as student life guidance regulations to establish teachers' rights and prepare legal grounds to ensure their enforceability."

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He continued, "We will promptly revise unreasonable autonomous ordinances that infringe on teachers' rights." Regarding this, he mentioned, "The Ministry of Education has been striving to improve systems for establishing teachers' rights and to foster a culture of respecting teachers' rights, but last year, the number of cases of educational activity infringements reviewed and processed in schools exceeded 3,000 for the first time, indicating a serious problem. In particular, due to student human rights ordinances, it has become difficult to wake students sleeping during class and to resolve minor disputes, greatly restricting teachers' proactive life guidance."

Minister Lee said, "We will strengthen parental responsibility and rationally improve communication standards between parents and teachers to drastically improve the complaint response system." He also introduced the situation by saying, "Voices from schools are increasing, expressing difficulties in active educational activities due to malicious complaints from some parents."

Yoon Jae-ok, floor leader of the People Power Party, said at the meeting, "A culture of mutual respect among the three main parties in education?students, teachers, and parents?must be established," and added, "The government, political circles, and the education sector must work together to establish systems for restoring teachers' rights." To this end, he said, "We must revise related laws to improve communication between parents and teachers and establish a culture of mutual respect," and "We will grant immunity for legitimate life guidance, require the education office's opinion to be heard during investigations of teachers for child abuse, and make it mandatory to submit the school principal's opinion." Furthermore, he said, "We will do our best to amend related laws for establishing teachers' rights, such as improving the Teachers' Rights Protection Committee system and recording educational activity infringement acts in student life records."

Park Dae-chul, chairman of the People Power Party Policy Committee, said, "Since the student human rights ordinances, which started with the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education in 2010 and have been implemented in seven metropolitan cities and provinces, have not been revised, many opinions are emerging that restoring teachers' rights is impossible," adding, "Only by correcting the education environment skewed toward student human rights can the collapse of teachers' rights be prevented." Park said, "Ordinances must be revised within the scope of laws, so problematic provisions should be improved through the revision of higher laws related to ordinances," and "The prompt passage of the Teacher Status Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Child Abuse Punishment Act, which are currently pending in the National Assembly, is urgent."

He also said, "Student human rights ordinances of metropolitan and provincial offices of education must be revised," and requested, "Progressive superintendents of education should feel a heavy responsibility for the collapse of teachers' rights caused by focusing only on student human rights and voluntarily participate in revisions." Additionally, he said, "To respond to indiscriminate child abuse reports by some parents, system improvements must be expedited so that when teachers' rights are infringed, the infringing student can be urgently separated and urgent measures can be taken first. Measures such as supporting litigation costs for affected teachers also need to be considered." He further stated, "Infringements on teachers' rights should also be recorded in student life records," and urged, "Measures should be devised to unify complaint response channels so that teachers do not suffer from malicious complaints."

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