Teacher Evaluation System to Make Debut

A teacher evaluation system will be introduced in 48 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide on a trial basis beginning November 8.

Kim Jin-pyo, the deputy prime minister and minister of education and human resources development said Friday, “Negotiations, which the ministry made with representatives from unionized teachers and the parents association to introduce the teachers’ evaluation system, collapsed. So the ministry will receive applications from schools that want to participate in test operations of the system on November 8 and run the system under a pilot program until August next year.”

The announcement invited resistance from teachers. The Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union (KTU) is planning a collective protest, depending on the result of a vote by its union members, beginning on November 7. The Korea Federation of Teachers’ Association (KFTA) also announced that it would launch a comprehensive protest on November 12.

The special committee for better public education held a representatives meeting earlier Thursday, after overnight working-level negotiations Wednesday, but they failed to reach an agreement.

At one point, negotiators seemed to be close to a consensus. However, negotiations broke down when KTU argued that principals and deputy principals should be banned from evaluation and demanded several additional conditions, including the enactment of the legal number of weekly lessons, abolition of the current efficiency rating system and the postponement of the test operation until February next year.

The ministry decided to propose two options for the test run of the system, based on the discussions it has had so far, so that schools can choose from either of them.

According to the proposed pilot operational plan, multi-source feedback (MSF) will be adopted so that teachers can be evaluated based on their teaching skills, the level of class preparations and teaching plans by their colleagues. Elementary school teachers will be graded by same-grade teachers, while middle school teachers will be evaluated by same-subject teachers.

Seong-Chul Hong sungchul@donga.com