Zero tolerance for sex offender teachers
Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, speaks about measures to fight sexual violence in schools during a news conference at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Thursday. / Yonhap
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Teachers found guilty of committing sex offenses will be deprived of their teacher’s license, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said, Thursday.
The office said it will take a zero-tolerance approach to sex offenses by teachers.
The measure came after a group of male teachers at a public high school in Seoul were recently accused of sexually harassing female teachers and students for more than a year.
“Schools should be the safest social fence for students,” Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon said at a press conference at the SMOE building in central Seoul.
“We’ll take stern legal action against teachers found to have committed sex offenses. For a single offence, we’ll not only kick out such teachers convicted of sexual molestation but also disclose their names,” he said.
If a teacher’s sexual misconduct is reported, the SMOE will launch a special inspection immediately and will have the teacher removed from his or her post even before the police investigation is concluded or prosecution’s indictment is issued.
Each school will also have an outside counselor to help it with such issues. The SMOE will set up an online hotline through which victims can report the crimes or consult anonymously through computers or mobile phones ― a measure the Ministry of Education is also considering.
Blaming the remaining authoritarian hierarchy among school faculty members as one reason for sexual abuses, Cho said that the SMOE will root out that culture from schools to establish human rights-friendly environments.
In the recent sexual abuse case at the high school, the victims were not only students but also new and part-time female teachers, and the alleged offenders were male teachers in managing positions that evaluate and decide whether to hire part-time teachers as full-timers. And the school’s principal is among those being investigated for alleged negligence and even participation in the sexual abuse.
Civic groups, however, said that the SMOE’s measure would not be an ultimate solution because most of the abusers have been punished softly and returned to schools after one or two years of probation.
“Of a total of 240 teachers disciplined for their sexual abuse in the last five years, 115 teachers, or 47.9 percent, still remain in school,” said a parent group official.
“Those involved in any kind of sexual misconduct should be permanently banned from the education sector regardless of whether they are convicted in court or not.”
According to the ministry, 35 teachers in elementary, middle and high schools nationwide have been punished for sexual misconduct in the first half of this year, reaching the last year’s total disciplinary record of 40.