Letters | Teacher rights under threat in South Korea
- Readers write in about South Korean teachers’ ordeals, and the Hong Kong property market
A teacher who was in her 20s was found dead last week in an elementary school in Seocho-gu, a wealthy district near Gangnam-gu in Seoul, in an apparent suicide. There was talk that she had suffered “gapjil” – or abuse of power – at the hands of one or more parents. According to reports, her fellow teachers said she had been screamed at after a pupil was injured during an argument between students.
Days before that, at another elementary school in Yangcheon-Gu, a western district of Seoul, there was a case of a teacher who was allegedly beaten by a sixth-grader and seriously injured. But it was reported that the student’s parents put the blame for the incident on the teacher instead, saying she had punished their son.
After these two cases made headlines in the South Korean media, thousands of teachers took to the streets, calling for protection of their rights.
Many teachers shared their ordeals, bemoaning the pervasiveness of malicious complaints from parents. Some parents would falsely accuse teachers of abuse simply because their children didn’t like being disciplined, and there were quite a few cases of students verbally or physically abusing teachers.
However, schools often turn a blind eye to the malicious treatment of teachers by students or parents. In the event of student violence, teachers are advised to take the other students and run from the classroom; they also have to protect the other students’ right to education.