Troublemakers Are Likely To Be Suspended For 1 Year

The government will supervise the troublemaking students more strictly. Students who are punished with withdrawal or its equivalences are suspended for one year.

At the forum on ` revision on student punishment and reentering system ` hosted by the Korea Institute for Youth Development (KIYD), Chung Ha-Bae, the principal of Shihung Middle School in Seoul, announced countermeasures against troublemaking students yesterday.

Since the mandatory middle school education begins from next year making it impossible to kick out troublemakers, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources (MEHR) has commissioned the KIYD a policy review project on `student punishment system revision`. And after collecting opinions from yesterday’s forum and another forum on 13th in Daejeon, the ministry will revise the enforcement ordinance in the elementary and secondary education law.

Principal Chung asserted by saying, ``Although the revised enforcement ordinance of 1998, which changed the supervision method from punishment oriented to guidance oriented, intends to protect the troublemakers within the boundary of the school, the troublemaking students repeatedly violated the rules and interrupted lectures as a side-effect. They are making other student difficult to study.``

He also pointed out that the current system, in which withdrawn or quitted students can easily reenter the school they were attending or other schools, making the punishing system nominal, has become one of main reason that accelerates the `demolition of school`.

The MEHR is reviewing a measure that encourages students who are unable to adapt themselves to a school to enter an alternative school, rather than opting for a suspension for a certain time. Under the system, if they refuse to go to the alternative school, they are punished. And, even if a student wants to return to a school, the readmission is given only after a thorough examination on whether he/she is completely regretful.

Among middle school students, 888 students in 1998, 550 in 1999, and 848 in 2000 were withdrawn from their schools. The number of students, who were heavily punished in the form of social service by the school, is, 27,504 in 1998, 24,916 in 1999, and 25,003 in 2000.

According to a survey asking Seoul Metropolitan area’s 1,800 middle and high school students, parents, and teachers, pointing out the ineffectiveness of the current punishment system, 81.9 percent of the teachers, 71.6 percent of the parents, and 69.3 percent of the students answered, ``No matter which form, the current system has to be revised.``

As a measure of punishment for withdrawal candidates, 37.4 percent chose to send the student to an alternative school, 34 percent selected to create a new system, 15.7 percent selected a substitute measure, and 12.9 percent opted to send the students to other schools. Among them, 39.1 percent said, ``If a student harms other students, the school must be able to kick him/her out to protect other innocent students.``

Lee In-Chul inchul@donga.com