Woman's forum protest goes viral

By Lee Ji-hye

A video of a woman has gone viral after she protested at a global forum on education on Wednesday.

The woman raised her hand at the World Education Forum 2015, a four-day conference in Songdo, asking to be called on during a question-and-answer session.

“I wanted to raise my voice,” Moon Ah-young, the head of Peace Education Project Momo, said after the session. “Is this really fair, spending so much money on this forum that spends an hour-and-a-half only for praising Korean education.

“You all are not here for that, you are here to develop the system. Please practice what you preach.”

Journalists had asked her to comment on the question she raised during a plenary session titled, “Education drives development”.

Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals Jeffrey Sachs chaired the session, while welcoming remarks were delivered by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Hwang Woo-yea, and a presentation given by the Korean Educational Development Institute’s Baek Sun-geun.

“One of the panelists stated that Korean families pay for their children’s college education (out of their own pockets), when that is not the case,” Moon said during the session.

“The families have no choice but to go into heavy debt to pay ㅡ I find it problematic that this discussion is being based on false information, especially at a place where the discussion is for the future of world education.”