Lee Won-hee to Head Teachers’ Association
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Lee Won-hee, Korean language teacher at Jamsil High School in Seoul, was elected as the 33rd president of the Korean Federation of Teachers' Association (KFTA) on Thursday.
Lee is the first schoolteacher to be elected as the head of the association. The group announced that Lee has gained 46.7 percent of a total of 157,245 votes.
Lee, famous for his broadcasted lectures at local education TV channel EBS, had worked as an advisory member for the president and served as the vice president of KFTA.
Lee and his staff _ Prof. Park Yong-jo of Chinju National University of Education, Choi Jung-hee of Pungam Elementary School and three others _ have pledged to put his three-year tenure in making the association powerful and pride-worthy.
Lee said that he will try to increase the membership to 250,000, about 60 percent of the nation's entire teachers. The new president said he is against the revision of the Pension Law for Public Servants and will openly support one candidate for the December presidential election.
He has many pending issues to solve, including an open recruitment of school headmasters and innovation of the 60-year-old organization.