Gyeonggi education chief-elect proposes real-life version of 'Teach You a Lesson' agency

An Min-seok, the incoming superintendent of education for Gyeonggi Province, has proposed a public debate on establishing a real-life version of the "Teachers' Rights Protection Bureau" featured in the Netflix drama series "Teach You a Lesson."

An posted on his social media account Thursday that he had watched all 10 episodes of "Teach You a Lesson," saying the drama's violent and exaggerated elements — a product of its webtoon origins — made him uncomfortable, but that he took seriously its depiction of a school system in collapse.

"There must be a clear reason why so many parents are watching 'Teach You a Lesson,'" he said, adding that restoring trust within school communities was more important now than ever.

An Min-seok, Gyeonggi Province superintendent of education-elect [Yonhap]

An cited a proposal by Lee Gyeong-a, a research fellow at the Democratic Research Institute, to establish a "Teachers' Rights Protection Bureau" within the Ministry of Education, saying he expected the ministry to act decisively given the urgency of restoring teachers' rights.

He added that as Gyeonggi Province superintendent-elect, he was proposing an open public debate on whether to create such a bureau within the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education.

An said the goal of a "Gyeonggi-style Teachers' Rights Protection Bureau" would be to restore school communities and create schools "where students look forward to coming, teachers are respected, and parents feel at ease." He said he would await opinions both for and against the idea.

Proposed 'Education Activity Protection Bureau': a state-led institutional response system

The Democratic Research Institute, the think tank of the Democratic Party of Korea, released a policy brief Thursday proposing the creation of an "Education Activity Protection Bureau" — a name distinct from the drama's "Teachers' Rights Protection Bureau" — under the Ministry of Education.

In the report, research fellow Lee Gyeong-a said the bureau should be designed not as a punitive special agency like the one in the drama, but as a state-led control tower that centrally manages cases of interference with educational activities.

Lee said the Ministry of Education should house the Education Activity Protection Bureau, while metropolitan and provincial education offices should establish legally mandated Education Activity Protection Support Centers, and district-level education support offices should set up field support teams — linking what are now fragmented response systems into a coherent whole. She said cases of interference with educational activities must be shifted to an institutional response framework for which the state and education offices bear responsibility.

The report identified four core functions the organization should perform: building an integrated classification system for cases of interference with educational activities, instituting institutional accountability for malicious complaints, providing support in responding to child abuse reports, and supporting the restoration of school communities.

Lee said the structure in which teachers directly bear the brunt of malicious complaints must be minimized. She proposed that parental complaints be received and managed through official school channels, while repeat complaints, abusive or threatening complaints, and cases involving the spread of false information that chill educational activity be transferred to education offices for legal review and formal response.

‘참교육’처럼 패서 가르친다?…민주당 싱크탱크 “응징형 아닌 통합관리 컨트롤타워 둬야”

[헤럴드경제=김성훈 기자] 넷플릭스 드라마 ‘참교육’에 등장하는 가상의 정부 조직 ‘교권보호국’처럼 교육부 산하에 교육활동 침해 문제를 총괄하는 전담 조직을 신설

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