May 23, 2008
RAISE THE STANDARDS OF WORK AND EDUCATION IN SOUTH KOREA!
TEA-KOR supports the anti-corruption measures announced recently by the government of the Republic of Korea. These measures are intended to reduce the acceptance of bribes, and exclude offenders who leak test questions, manipulate students' grades or commit sexual violence against minors will be dismissed for good.
The government of the Republic of Korea is busy inflaming fear and hatred against foreign workers and stepping up a crackdown against illegal foreign workers. In several incidents, foreign teachers and factory workers have been coloured as criminal or deviant when individuals are caught or suspected of criminal activity.
The government ought to be setting employment standards higher, purging the education, immigration and labour ministries of corruption, and policing businesses against illegal and unfair practices.
The quality of higher education is falling, reports a respected international study of education in relation to economic and social needs, the World Competitiveness Yearbook of the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Although Korea's completion rate is strong, the study ranked Korea 53rd in the extent to which university education meets social and economic needs, one of the criteria for measuring the quality of higher education. It also stated that it is declining in competitiveness.
In TEA-KOR's view, English language education requires a greater investment and commitment to public education if there are to be improvements in education productivity (i.e., greater success at graduation in relation to fees paid for education). It also requires regulation of the private academies and improved working conditions in such establishments.
However, the current government is madly trying to accelerate and widen the privatization of education and further deregulate business and industry. Instead of carrying on along the path of progress, it is fervently backpedalling.
TEA-KOR supports students, educators and civil organizations activating against tuition fee increases and proposed changes to English language education policies. The new president's declarations on the questions of work and education are causing unrest. They immediately prompted a mass agitation of about 7,000 civic group members and college students downtown Seoul on March 29. Their main call: to call for a reduction of college tuition fees.
This was first mass protest since the new government took office a month ago. The government's concerns about quality education cannot be taken seriously since it sent 14,000 riot police of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency as a threat to protesting students and is extending a crackdown against migrant worker.
More recently a meeting of university and college professors criticized the government's discussion of changing the education system. According to TEA-KOR, all these points of resistance and challenge have validity. They hold the common concerns of democracy, fairness and quality of education and labour standards.
TEA-KOR Commentary tea_kor@yahoo.com