Teaching cleanliness in Korea

By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan

Recently an interesting article by Do Je-hae on “Who should clean classrooms?” appeared on the April 19 Opinion page of The Korea Times. Her article was in response to some articles in this newspaper and other media channels regarding the importance of classroom cleaning by students in Korea, the excellence of Korean school education system and the problems faced by students and teachers in the country.

During my first visit to Korea one thing which really impressed me was the cleanliness. Inspired by it I wrote an article in this newspaper on “Korea’s cleanliness” on Nov. 9, 2016. My article was in the backdrop of the slow progress of the “Clean India” campaign started by the Narendra Modi administration in India in 2014. My argument in the article was that the cleanliness is a collective effort and is not possible without the participation of citizens. I wrote, “Korea made cleanliness not only the responsibility of the government but that of every citizen.”

Korea’s condition in the 1950s was similar to that of any developing country where pollution and unhygienic conditions are rampant. But the Korean drive towards cleanliness was successful for several reasons ― such as the Saemaul Undong movement in the villages, mobilizing of schoolchildren for cleaning classrooms and putting hefty fines on littering and throwing out unseparated garbage which could be recycled.

Although I agree with Do regarding the repressive aspects of the Korean school education system, I fail to accept her argument that Korean students should be exempted from mandatory school cleaning work as “there are people who clean for a living.” There are people who play sports for a living, so should students be stopped from playing games as there are professional players in Korea?

Cleaning the school is not only educative as it inculcates values of hygiene among the students, but it also teaches them the dignity of labor. In countries like India where the caste system is deeply embedded in society, cleaning work is often regarded as degrading and the job of lower castes. As a result, despite thousands of sanitation workers the condition of cleanliness in many Indian cities remains pathetic.

In Indian tradition, manual labor has low social prestige. This is reflected in India’s poor performance in the manufacturing sector but high performance in the service sector such as information technology. Compared to India, despite lacking natural resources Korea became a manufacturing giant because of the hardworking people who believed in the dignity of labor. Also, as a country of 1.25 billion people India’s performance in Olympic Games remains shameful and reflects the cultural orientation of the Indians towards physical labor.

However, in Korea also there has been a decline in respect towards manual labor. Skill development and vocational training is down looked upon and the emphasis is more on acquiring university degrees and higher education. As a result, despite having massive youth unemployment in the country Korea has to depend on immigrant workers for several low-skilled jobs.

Therefore, instead of getting rid of the school cleaning work by students, the best way would be that the teachers in Korea should also join the students in the cleaning exercise, which was mentioned by Yang Jae-pyo in his April 11 article in this newspaper on “Cleaning in school is education.” This would also help to reduce the Joseon-era Confucian social hierarchy that exists between teachers and students.

The author is assistant professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, India. His e-mail address is rkdhawan13@hotmail.com.