By Bahk Eun-ji
Many teachers were up in arms Wednesday over a parliamentary bill banning public schools from teaching curricula subjects for subsequent semesters in advance.
The bill was passed by the education committee of the National Assembly, Tuesday.
The Public Education Normalization Promotion Special Law is designed to ban schools from providing students with advanced study courses.
For example, third graders of middle schools will not be able to take courses from the high school curriculum in advance at schools from August.
Private institutions, or “hagwon,” will also be banned from offering advanced study courses.
It also prohibits schools and universities from setting entrance exam questions not on the curricula of middle and high school courses.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) and 30 members from the ruling Saenuri Party together with the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) of the National Assembly Education, Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee agreed on prohibiting so-called “pre-studying.”
The government wants the ban on such study to discourage elementary, middle and high school students from relying on private tutoring.
It said when schools provide advanced study courses, students attend hagwon to study even more in advance for a better performance at school.
However, teachers at public schools said the bill is a blatant disregard of reality, especially for college-bound high school students who are preparing for the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT).
“Usually, second graders in high schools have to finish all subjects covered in the CSAT until the end of the academic year, so that they can prepare for the CSAT during their third year.
“If the bill is enacted, seniors will be deadlocked in preparing for the CSAT, because they can’t finish the curriculum during their second high school year,” said a math teacher, who only wanted to be named as Choi.
He said that although the government and lawmakers designed the bill to prevent students from excessive learning at private educational institutes, it will rather boost the need for them to rely on hagwon.
“Because they can’t finish the subjects in school, they will end up relying on private tutoring,” Choi added.
In response to the criticism, an official from the MOE said it will set detailed enforcement ordinances within six months, after collecting opinions from teachers at public schools.
“The main objective of this bill is to keep students and parents spending excessive money on private tutoring, however, the detailed ordinance will be announced this August. We are in the process of seeking opinions on how to enact the bill practically,” said Jeon Hong-in, a deputy director in charge of the public education department at the ministry.