hankyoreh

including the Parents’ Association for Equal Education

It has been found that the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education handed down a series of light punishments, including verbal warnings, to teachers who were accused of sexual harassment or cheating on a certified English-language test. This has incited anger among critics who say the punishments the SMOE delivered to teachers who gave students permission to take field trips in lieu of participating in the nationwide scholastic achievement assessment (ilje gosa) were too excessive. The teachers who permitted the trips were fired or dismissed.

According to data submitted Monday by the SMOE to Rep. Kim Young-jin of the main opposition Democratic Party, the SMOE penalized a total of 253 teachers or education officials between 2007 and 2008, nine of whom were punished with heavy disciplinary measures such as dismissal or firing. The accused were involved in graft, theft, abusing public funds or sexually harassing female students.

The SMOE handed down light punishments in a number of cases. A verbal warning was given to one teacher charged with sexually harassing a woman in the subway and another charged with sexually harassing a female police officer and obstructing her official duties. Salary reductions of three months were given to one teacher charged with public sexual harassment and another charged with manipulating a TOEIC test score.

Kim said he wondered whether the teachers who informed people about the problems with the ilje gosa should be given heavier punishments than those charged with sexual harassment. He also wondered whether they should be given the same punishment as teachers who commit crimes of corruption such as embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds.

“The superintendent has the power to punish the teachers, but the education minister needs to withdraw the punishments because he was the one who initiated the ilje gosa.”

The ilje gosa, taken by elementary, middle and high school students, is the primary method used to determine admission to middle and high schools. Taking the test is a matter of choice, but because schools use the test results for admissions processes, many feel the choice is rather narrow. Student and parent groups protesting the test in October organized field trips and other alternative activities to publicize the matter of choice and voice their objections to what they feel is a competitive educational environment facilitated by an admissions system that uses the test as its only measure of academic achievement.

Civic organizations have held demonstrations and issued statements calling for the SMOE to withdraw the punishments.

In a statement released Monday, the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy blamed the SMOE for “trying to drive teachers who participated in a campaign against the administration out of the classroom, while handing down light punishments for teachers involved in a variety of corrupt deeds.”

In another statement released the same day, the National Association of Professors for a Democratic Society said, “The ilje gosa is a subject for social debate, and should not be a cause for firing or dismissing teachers. Compared with the light punishments given for disgraceful offenses, the punishments given to the teachers are unfair.”

The Seoul Citizens’ Association Opposing the Ilje Gosa and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU, Jeon Gyo Jo) held demonstrations throughout the day on Monday in front of the SMOE, demanding that it withdraw the punishments and suspend the ilje gosa.

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