KTU seeks to remove educational discrimination

By Park Si-soo

In January 1986, a middle school student jumped to her death after leaving a memo that read: “Happiness doesn’t come in the order of school grades.”

It provoked public outrage over an education system that promoted the winner-takes-all rule through fierce peer-to-peer competition.

Twenty five years have passed since the tragic event.

Yet, in the eyes of Jang Suk-woong, chairman of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), the notorious rule is still prevalent. Worse, he said, it’s getting harder to see a dramatic reversal of low achievers climbing up to the higher academic echelon only through their own efforts.

Jang was elected in January to lead the KTU, a union representing about 58,000 teachers and workers in public and private schools here. The union marked its 22nd anniversary on May 28.

“Peer-on-peer competition at school has intensified since the inception of the current administration. Adding to the woe is that children from rich families are increasingly occupying top rankings at schools, creating a wider gap in academic achievement through family wealth,” Jang said in an interview with The Korea Times at the KTU headquarters in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul.

The chairman said President Lee Myung-bak had insisted that free competition at schools would eventually bring about overall academic improvement. But it triggered a backfire of solidifying the structure where students from rich families achieve better academic performances than those from low-income families.

He calls it “educational discrimination.”

In order to thwart the succession of what he called a discriminative policy to the next president, the KTU leader said, his union will “actively work to promote and suggest policies upholding the value of equality” to major presidential hopefuls next year.

He made it clear that the union opposes the introduction of the National English Proficiency Test (NEPT).

“It will spur private education and eventually further widen the academic achievement gap between children from rich and poor families,” he said.

The education ministry said last month that the NEPT will make its debut next year and will eventually become the official English exam in the Scholastic Aptitude Test for university admission.

The test, which the ministry took more than three years to develop, has four testing segments ― listening, reading, speaking and writing. The current exam runs only two segments ― listening and reading.

Many studies have proven the correlation between family wealth and the academic achievement of children. Simply put, children from rich families are much likely to earn higher scores at school than those from low-income families due to their access to private tutoring.

In fact, the ministry’s announcement inspired private language institutes or hagwon to open classes focused on the upcoming English speaking and writing tests.

Half-price tuition

Jang is a vocal advocate of the controversial “half-price tuition” policy, initiated by the conservative ruling Grand National Party (GNP).

Hundreds of students, activists and liberal-minded celebrities have attended rallies in central Seoul for days, call for the government to take concrete steps to effectively lower tuition rates.

These moves were touched off by Rep. Hwang Woo-yea, floor leader of the GNP. He brought up the idea of trimming the current university tuition by half last month in an apparent political tactic to draw attention from eligible voters in their 20s to the general and presidential elections next year.

Yet, any progress on the issue has yet to be made due to strong opposition from universities.

“It’s heartbreaking to see students giving up their admission to university since they cannot afford the tuition,” he said. “This is not the first time for politicians to bring up the issue. We cannot miss this opportunity.” The reduction of tuition was one of the key commitments of President Lee during his 2007 presidential election campaign.

The KTU boss recently staged a one-man rally in Gwanghwamun Plaza in downtown Seoul, despite sporadic showers, to raise public awareness on the issue and seek support.

Police said 230 university students killed themselves last year due to financial hardship.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report in 2009 that Korea’s tuition fees ranked second highest, after the U.S.

Another report by the education ministry released last month showed that the average annual tuition of the 163 four-year private colleges was nearly 7.69 million won ($7,000). The average tuition of the 28 national and provincial universities was 4.43 million won.

Human rights

Jang is a firm believer that students’ human rights should be protected the same as adults.

“Teachers have no right to restrict freedom. But the restriction has long been accepted as a way to control wayward students. It’s time to change it from the bottom,” he said.

In the past, teachers in Korea had near-absolute power in class so that they were free to use corporal punishment, define hair length and dress codes, and even search belongings without consent.

The gray legacy of a totalitarian society has drastically dwindled due to people’s growing sense of human rights. Last year, teachers were banned from carrying out physical punishment and the ban left many teachers toothless in controlling wayward students.

“Some teachers complain the school atmosphere is frequently thrown into disarray in the absence of corporal punishment. If so, does it mean he or she has run classes solely relying on painful measures?” he asked. “Teachers should come up with peaceful measures with which they can well educate students while protecting their human rights.”

The chairman is supposed to leave his post in later 2012. He will return to a tiny middle school with 19 students in South Jeolla Province to teach “general society,” a comprehensive subject that covers history, geology.

“It may be difficult during my term to shift this big society to a way where students can be happy regardless of their school records,” he said. “But it could be possible for me to make this happen in a small school in the not so distant future.”