More elite schools may face shutdown

By Chung Hyun-chae

Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education

More elite high schools may face closure if they fail to serve their purpose of providing special education, Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, has warned.

He said his office will rigorously review high schools specializing in foreign languages or science in the first half of next year to decide whether to keep them operating.

“We will assess the elite high schools to see if they are operating properly and meeting their teaching requirements,” Cho told The Korea Times.

“If these schools are found to have been engaged only in preparing students for college entrance exams without carrying out their specialty curricula, we have no choice but to have their license revoked,” he said.

The review plan follows his decision to strip six “autonomous” private high schools of their licenses on Oct. 31 despite thier objections of students, parents and principals from the schools, as well as the Ministry of Education.

The move will be the first major test of Cho’s egalitarian policy since he took the helm of city’s education office in July.

The ministry has ordered the office to retract its decision on the autonomous schools by Nov. 17. If the office refuses, the ministry has threatened to nullify its decision. Principals of the affected schools have vowed to take legal action.

However, the liberal superintendent is sticking to his plan to close autonomous schools that are found to be operating improperly and fail to pass evaluations. Some schools have already been accused of accounting fraud, admission irregularities and inappropriate curriculums.

Cho believe the autonomous schools, which were set up under the previous conservative government, have contributed to a widening of the education gap in Korea.

His basic policy is to narrow the gap by shutting down most of the elite schools and strengthening regular schools. He prefers equal education opportunities for all students instead of competition-oriented education for a few intelligent children.

Cho also plans to let international middle schools — another type of elite school — recruit students only through a lottery system to prevent excess competition for admissions and to reduce the burden of private tutoring.

He also promised to crack down on foreigner-only schools for alleged admission fraud and other misdeeds. He pointed out that two years ago some social dignitaries and rich businesspeople had their children admitted to the schools by forging citizenship documents and passports.

He said his office would regularly inspect foreign and international schools to prevent such a scandal happening again, and to ensure operational transparency and accountability.