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KO: Anti-school bill campaign

In its current campaign against the revised Private Schools Law, the opposition Grand National Party is going too far. The revision bill which will soon be signed into law by President Roh Moo-hyun after it was railroaded by the ruling Uri Party on Dec. 9 is criticized for instituting improper interference with private school operations. But claims that the bill was a product of a conspiracy by pro-North Korean leftists depart from the boundary of sound criticism and dangerously instigate ideological polarization in this country.

Rep. Rhee Q-taek, head of the GNP's "struggle headquarters" for the nullification of the revision, is reported to have said that there is a "12,000-strong core group of pro-North Korean leftist forces and 320,000 sympathizers" in South Korea and some of them are planted in Cheong Wa Dae, media organizations, schools and private institutes. The ruling party unilaterally passed the education bill in a plot to have former "Jeon-gyojo" teachers' union members and pro-North leftists infiltrate the boards of private school foundations in order to teach leftist ideology to students, the lawmaker told a strategy meeting Sunday.

When Yonhap News inquired of him the source of the information, Rep. Rhee stepped back, saying that he made the remarks on the basis of data published in "news magazines and other journals." Still, the senior GNP Assemblyman seems to believe the authenticity of the figures strongly as he argued that leftist forces conspired to turn private schools into scenes of dispute and conflict, and then into bases of revolutionary struggles.

Hearing these chilling pronouncements on the present status of "leftist forces" and the effect of the revised education law, we are rather relieved about the fact that he was only relying on secondary information. If 12,000 "core" pro-North Korean activists do exist in the South along with 320,000 sympathizers, actively engaged in spreading the leftist ideology in the media, schools and the center of political powers, the Republic of Korea's liberal democratic national identity would be in extreme jeopardy. But we doubt that this is true.

For some time now, the left-right ideological dichotomy has been in fashion among critics of the present government who tend to pick up its reform measures, whether they be for improvements of public welfare or administrative innovation, as examples of leftist-oriented efforts for social transformation. This opposition strategy is aimed to take advantage of those in the social mainstream who have been allergic to everything branded "leftist" since the Korean War against the communists from the North. And the distorted and outdated left-right concept in Korea has unfairly continued into the liberal-conservative divide in present-day public policies.

Private school operators now vehemently oppose the revision bill as it mandates filling a quarter of board seats with outsiders to be nominated by "school oversight committees" made up of teachers, parents and community leaders of equal numbers. Inclusion of these outside elements will ensure transparent school finances and prevent corrupt practices, the administration and its party claim. But foundations insist that the bill, though maybe aimed at ferreting out some bad apples, will seriously threaten the independent management of schools.

Given the record of Jeon-gyojo's radical activities since its inception more than a decade ago, the apprehensions of school foundations about the law revision are justified. However, the opposition party's allegation on a possible takeover of private schools by the feared pro-North leftist warriors as a result of the legislation is overblown and rather obscures its plausible cause in rejecting the bill.

2005.12.20
The Korea Herald

Posted by: lifeischeese
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Posted in: News on December 20, 2005 @ 12:00 AM

Tags: School

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