Seouls top educator rejects competition-oriented policy

By Kang Shin-who

Staff reporter

Kwak No-hyun, the first-ever liberal education superintendent elected in Seoul, took office Thursday, pledging to overhaul educational polices designed to boost "limitless" competition.

During an inauguration ceremony, Kwak said he will expand measures to give free education from kindergarten to high school and provide students with free meals.

"Students, teachers and parents are suffering due to education policies designed to boost 'limitless' competition. Parents have been taken hostage by high private tutoring costs," he said.

He said he will renovate education policies to set new standards for public schools, eliminating the outdated framework based on extreme competition.

"An eco-friendly free meal service will be the starting point of education welfare, which is guaranteed in the Constitution. I will introduce more after school child-care programs," Kwak said.

Currently, the governing Grand National Party is opposing the free meal plan and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, the chief of local government, which will have to pay for the plan, has been negative about the idea.

Kwak said all children have the right to learn equally regardless of whether they are from rich families or poor ones, hinting that he stands against the government's education policies favoring elite students.

As a decision maker with the authority to punish teachers, Kwak also disagrees with the government about the dismissal of unionized teachers, who are accused of having joined in or paid dues to political parties.

Earlier, he criticized the government saying that the dismissal of the "political" teachers was a "violent and oppressive" move by the education authorities.

Kwak is also skeptical about opening more autonomous high schools, a project which has been carried out by the Lee Myung-bak administration. Those schools, normally operated by big corporations or private foundations, are allowed to run their own curricula and charge higher tuition.

The government had planned to set up a total of 100 autonomous private high schools by 2012 and opened 25 last year. Kwak has made it clear that he does not support the plan as he believes that those schools are only for children from rich families and are not helpful for the public interest.

He also plans to curb special schools including foreign language high schools that charge tuition fees three times more than those of ordinary high schools.

Instead, he pledged to introduce "innovative schools" in order to cater to the needs of underprivileged students.

Kwak, who has worked for a human rights association, is also likely to give more freedom to students, with regulations on secondary school students' hairstyles and uniform expected to be relaxed.