Teachers union holds forum on restoring teacher authority

Education activity protection centers expanded from 17 to 84

Stress over parent complaints rises from 48.6% to 69.1%

Only 3.4% say school complaint channel functions in practice

Participants gather before the forum "Three Years After Sept. 4 Public Education Stoppage Day: Has Teacher Authority Been Restored?" held at the National Assembly members' office building on Monday. [Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union Federation]
Participants gather before the forum "Three Years After Sept. 4 Public Education Stoppage Day: Has Teacher Authority Been Restored?" held at the National Assembly members' office building on Monday. [Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union Federation]

Laws and systems to protect teacher authority have been introduced one after another since the Sept. 4 Public Education Stoppage Day, but teachers say they have felt little change on the ground. Of 1,352 child abuse reports that education superintendents deemed legitimate disciplinary guidance, only 21 cases — 1.6 percent — resulted in indictment.

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union Federation held a forum Monday at the National Assembly members' office building under the theme "Three Years After Sept. 4 Public Education Stoppage Day: Has Teacher Authority Been Restored?" to assess how teacher-protection policies are playing out in schools.

Lee Ssang-cheol, a senior research fellow at the Korean Educational Development Institute, said that over the past three years, teachers' authority to guide student conduct had been written into law and a system had been introduced in which schools and institutions — rather than individual teachers — handle complaints. Education activity protection centers grew from 17 to 84, teacher authority protection committees were transferred to district education offices, and 99.72 percent of schools had installed dedicated parent-meeting rooms.

Yet the expansion of these systems has not translated into reduced burdens for teachers. The TALIS 2024 survey found that the share of elementary school teachers reporting stress from handling parent complaints rose from 48.6 percent in 2018 to 69.1 percent in 2024. Stress stemming from violence, verbal abuse and threats also rose over the same period, from 21.3 percent to 34.6 percent.

The prolonged investigations teachers face after child abuse reports were also flagged as an unresolved problem. Of 1,870 superintendent opinions submitted in child abuse cases from 2023 through last year, 1,352 — or 72.3 percent — were judged to involve legitimate disciplinary guidance. Of those, only 21 cases were indicted, amounting to 1.6 percent.

Lee said teacher-protection policy must not remain confined to defensive legislation that retroactively shields legitimate educational activity. He called for clear judgment criteria that reflect each school's specific circumstances, along with dedicated staff and spaces for separating students and applying emergency restraints.

The school complaint-handling system was also found to be failing in practice. A survey of 987 elementary school teachers nationwide by Yoo Sang-beom, head of the teachers union federation's teacher rights bureau, found that only 3.4 percent said the consolidated school complaint channel was functioning in any meaningful way. Some 78 percent said it either did not function at all or existed only on paper.

In 71.5 percent of schools that had formed a complaint-response team, teachers were included as team members. However, only 11.1 percent said they had received adequate support from the school. A separate survey of 21,310 teachers nationwide found that 97 percent identified school administrators and district education offices as the parties responsible for handling complaints.

Kim So-mang, a teacher with a research group on complaint-handling systems, said the Ministry of Education's parent communication service "Yeodeurim" had introduced identity verification, consultation records and controls on consultation hours, but the structure in which a parent designates a specific teacher and that teacher must respond remained unchanged. Kim proposed shifting the entity that receives complaints from individual school staff to school complaint-response teams and district education offices, and called for filters to screen abusive language and a step-by-step escalation procedure.

Forum participants said the criteria for distinguishing legitimate educational activity from emotional abuse must be clarified, and that the system should be reformed so cases with no criminal grounds are closed before a formal investigation is opened or at an early stage.

Participants also called for the subordinate regulations of the revised Elementary and Secondary Education Act — set to take effect Oct. 29 — to explicitly spell out principals' responsibility for handling complaints and provide a legal basis for the staffing and budget of district education office support teams.

Song Su-yeon, chairwoman of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union Federation, said restoring teacher authority cannot be achieved simply by amending a few laws. "We need a system that protects teachers from unjust complaints and false reports and allows them to focus on education," she said.


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