By Kim Se-jeong
A court ordered a district education office Wednesday to lift restrictions that it placed on a private kindergarten in Seoul this year for hiring native speakers to teach English.
In March, Seongbuk District Education Office, under the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, ordered Uchon Kindergarten to close two of its classes and cut its number of students by 60. The kindergarten had been investigated for allegedly hiring native speakers to teach English as part of its official curriculum, which violated the Education Law.
Under the law, English education should not be part of official school curriculum until third grade. For kindergartens, including English as the part of the official daily curriculum is illegal, but they are allowed to teach it as an extra-curricular activity.
In defiance of the administrative order, the kindergarten filed a suit against the district education office with the Seoul Administrative Court.
Ruling in favor of the kindergarten, Judge Lee Seung-taek said the punishment was illegal because there was no evidence proving that the native teachers were hired to teach English on the official school curriculum.
The judge also blamed the district education office for raising allegations against the private institute based on assumptions, not facts.
The verdict came a week after the Ministry of Education announced a plan to ban private kindergartens from hiring English teachers for English education. The announcement prompted almost 100 owners of private English institutes to protest in Seoul, Tuesday.
In March 2011, the district education office received a tip that the kindergarten was teaching English as part of its official curriculum for children aged between three and five, and issued a warning.
It then told the kindergarten to stop providing English education as part of its regular curriculum.
In January this year, Uchon was again caught teaching English ― this time by Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education inspectors. The inspectors found native speakers leading the class. The district education office then ordered the punishment.
“After the initial warning, we changed so that English is only taught outside the regular curriculum and native teachers stay as assistant teachers,” the kindergarten said in a statement. “The punishment was unfair.”