The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education has unveiled 300 teacher-rights protection officers who will support teachers facing infringements on their teaching activities on a one-to-one basis, from the moment an incident occurs until it is resolved.
300 Officers Chosen From 36-to-1 Competition, Including Doctors, Lawyers and Former Police
About two months after Ahn Min-seok took office as Gyeonggi provincial education superintendent, the office launched a team of 300 teacher-rights protection officers who each take charge of an affected teacher and provide one-stop support from initial response through follow-up care. They were selected through document screening and interviews, and competition for the positions reached 36 to 1.
The officers come from a wide range of backgrounds, including doctors, lawyers and former police officers, as well as counselors, conflict mediation specialists and teachers. Other provincial and metropolitan education offices have run similar programs with teacher-rights officers, but this is the first time experts from such varied professions have been assembled on this scale.
The officers take charge of teachers caught up in child abuse reports, serious interference with teaching activities or abusive complaints, handling their cases from the earliest stage until the matter is closed. The aim is to allow a single teacher to receive continuous support, from verifying that interference with teaching activities took place to legal advice, psychological counseling and recovery, and follow-up management.
The program is also the centerpiece of the teacher-rights protection policy that Ahn has pursued since taking office. Functions related to protecting teachers' rights, previously scattered across departments and agencies, have been consolidated, and the superintendent has personally taken the position of head of the teacher-rights protection unit. At the launch ceremony, Ahn said he would "declare all-out war on abusive complaints," pledging support so teachers can focus on classes and education.
"Teachers Are Coming to Psychiatrists": Infringements Seen on the Ground
The experts serving as officers said they had already felt the severity of infringements on teachers' rights in their own fields.
Jee Gu-deok, a psychiatrist and director of Hanseo Central Hospital in Uijeongbu who serves as deputy head of the teacher-rights protection unit, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on the 3rd that "in the past there were many consultations involving students, but these days more teachers than you might think are receiving psychiatric treatment."
Jee said a considerable number of teachers become psychologically isolated after conflicts with students or parents when they also fail to receive support from those around them. Since 2018, Jee has handled crisis cases at schools through a hospital-based Wee Center program run by the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education and the Ministry of Education.
Bae Geun-seok, a professor of security and police administration at Shin Ansan University who worked as a police officer for 35 years, has also joined the team. Bae has worked in conflict mediation since 2020, when training on helping victims recover, taken shortly before his retirement from the police, drew him to the field.
Bae said teachers often endure problems alone rather than raising them formally, even when they clash with students or parents. Even if they file a report, he said, individual teachers bear a heavy burden from criminal and civil proceedings through to the end of the case. Bae said he would draw on his experience to provide legal advice alongside psychological recovery support.
Human Rights Commission Investigator and Teacher Who Suffered Abuse Join: "We Will Not Leave Them Alone"
Kim Ki-hoon, a lawyer with 10 years of experience specializing in criminal law, joined after representing teachers who had suffered infringements on their rights. He said he had met teachers who worried about their students and their teaching even after being harmed, and had also seen cases in which schools tried to play incidents down rather than actively protect teachers.
A former investigator at the National Human Rights Commission of Korea is also on the roster. Shin Sang-hoon worked for about three years from 2004 on the commission's rights violation remedy team, investigating cases including the human waste incident at the Army training center and the grenade and shooting attack at a guard post in Yeoncheon. Shin plans to apply experience in conflict mediation and human rights protection gained at the military police and the commission to protecting teachers' rights.
About 30% of the 300 officers are teachers. Yoon Seon-no, a teacher at Cheongok Elementary School in Pyeongtaek, applied after watching his wife go through an infringement on her rights as a teacher three years ago. He said that in the past, affected teachers were sometimes handed a list of hospitals offering counseling and then had to work out the next steps on their own, and stressed that more active intervention is needed.
Yoon said that "teachers' rights are ultimately students' right to education," stressing that protecting teachers' rights must not pit teachers, students and parents against one another. Ensuring that affected teachers are not left alone while keeping all members of a school community moving forward together is the task now given to the 300 officers chosen from a field of 36 applicants for each position.
