Expectations and concerns cross each other, as the nation enters into the first year of ``full educational autonomy" this month.
Among the 16 officials elected last month to head metropolitan and provincial education offices, people are focusing on ``progressive" superintendents in six areas, including Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi Province, which have almost 60 percent of the nation's elementary and secondary schools under their jurisdiction.
The voters' choice reflects their dissatisfaction with the current educational system, in which all three major players ― students, teachers and parents ― are unhappy. The only happy group is private teaching institutions, as out-of-campus tuitions reach the stratosphere.
President Lee Myung-bak was right when he vowed two years ago to root out private tutoring, but the reality has gone in the opposite direction. Why? Because no amount of pledges will do, unless Korea changes the timeworn system, which lines up all students in the nation in one endless file ― by the sole criteria of standardized test scores earned by rote memorization.
Kwak No-hyun, the new superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Education Office, seemed to know this when he promised to put greater emphasis on the creativity and diversity of students and their education.
Considering Kwak is not the official to say so, what matters is how ― and how consistently he would pursue the course. The three main points the top educator in the capital city has presented appear plausible enough as a starter.
His ``innovation school" proposal deserves positive consideration, as it will focus on underperforming students, like the No Child Left Behind program of the conservative Bush administration, an example where there should be no ideological dividing line when it comes to good education policy.
Critics of Kwak's school meal program are not without reasons, as the costs for providing free lunches for students of well-to-do parents could reduce support for poor children. But this is on condition that the schools can come up with a highly sophisticated subsidy system so that students cannot know who are paying for their meals and who are not, as is the case in France. The truth here is, however, some teachers openly single out students on the free meal list.
No less controversial would be the liberal educators' moves to introduce ``ordinances on students' human rights," which call for, among others, deregulating uniforms and hairstyles as well as giving the students rights to refuse forced after-school classes.
Opponents' concerns about students going wayward and their ``excessive politicization" are not entirely groundless. If the purpose of education is to train students to make decisions themselves based on positive thinking instead of blindly following uniformity, however, this is an experiment worthy of attempt while carefully supplementing steps to minimize adverse effects.
Most important is the cooperation between these liberal educators and conservative central government as well as provincial governors and mayors only for the sake of the nation's future generations. President Lee will be able to leave the legacy of an ``educational president," if he takes the lead by holding open-hearted dialogue with progressive educational chiefs.