Teachers` Union Threat to Mount Massive Street Rally in Protest

A heated debate over pressing education policies is highly likely to develop into a major conflict between the government and the national teachers` union. The National Teachers & Educational Workers’ Union declared that if their demands concerning the government education policies such as opening of the Korean education market and introducing the National Education Information System (NEIS) are not accepted, they will stage a massive street rally where a whole 100,000 union members will participate at the same time.

The National Teachers & Educational Workers` Union held a press conference in front of Cheong Wa Dae in the morning of Mar.28. “We will mount a massive rally in April in accordance with a decision of all the 100,000 union members to urge the government to make a right decision on critical education policies. We hope that there will not be a miserable and unprecedented thing happening in Korean education history,” the Union’s statement said.

Members from the Union headquarters and local chapters of the National Teachers & Educational Workers` Union said that they would mount all-night protests in front of Cheong Wa Dae and local education offices, demanding the government not to present a bill on the opening of the education market to the National Assembly.

Won Young-man, president of the teachers` union, had all his hairs cut in protest and proposed a direct meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun to discuss pressing education issues.

The teachers` union insisted that the committee of the National Education Information System will not be conducive to solving pending education issues because unreliable figures are on the committee. The Committee of the National Education Information System is composed of teachers` organizations and parents formed by the Ministry of the Education and Human Resources Development to discuss the NEIS.

With regard to the government’s decision to send non-combat troops to Iraq, the chairman maintained, “President Roh has decided to become a complicity in a invasion war led by the imperialist U.S. in regardless of the demand of pacifist Koreans. Now, Koreans have come under international criticisms for being citizens of a war criminal country.”

The National Teachers & Educational Workers` Union has been criticized for holding a joint class on anti-war and peace likely to stoke anti-American sentiment in Korea and for staging street rallies in protest against the government’s education polices.

A parent with a parents` group for right education for children said, “It is wrong for teachers to take hostage students to persuade the government to accept their demands. It is also self-righteous for them to accuse the Committee of the National Education Information System because it has some members who do not share opinions with them.”

That day, on the Union`s web site, there were more than 1000 messages criticizing the Union for having come up with a education material in which if a student gets a lower mark in a test on the U.S.-led war on Iraq, he is not a Korean.

A netizen wrote, “It is pity for the Union to take advantage of the miserable war in Iraq to make their case. I wonder whether our students will model on you teachers’ self-righteous behaviors.”

Another netizen with the ID ‘citizen’ insisted, “Teachers should not think of schools as a form where they can demonstrate their struggle for an ideology. It is a violent act to propagate their ideology to students with no ability of self-protection and of reasonable thinking by utilizing education.”

In-Chul Lee Seong-Chul Hong inchul@donga.com sungchul@donga.com