Light and Shadow of the Church: Moral Hazard and the Broken Nature of Education > News

Recently, the Daegu District Court sentenced an elementary school teacher in his 30s to six months in prison for borrowing a large amount of money by lying to acquaintances and wasting it on investing in overseas stocks. This teacher completely trampled on the trust of his acquaintances by taking advantage of desperate situations such as surgical expenses or traffic accident settlements, and committed unscrupulous acts such as using the borrowed money for personal investments and delaying repayment. The court made it clear that damage recovery had not been fully achieved and that the crime was serious, but it allowed him to avoid imprisonment. This is a clear example of how lax the moral standards of our society have become, even though an educator's sense of ethics should be evaluated more severely than that of an ordinary criminal.

The judgment of educational institutions is also on the chopping block. The incident in which the War Memorial of Korea included a visit to the ‘American Resistance and Assistance Memorial Hall’, which denies North Korea’s invasion of the South and glorifies the Chinese military’s participation in the war, in its overseas training program for teachers clearly revealed our society’s insensitivity to security. It is shocking that a public institution run by taxpayers' money tried to convey a distorted view of history to teachers, rather than establishing a correct view of history. The schedule was belatedly canceled due to controversy, but this goes beyond a simple administrative mistake and suggests how seriously the value system of our educational administration is contaminated.

On the other hand, the teaching authority in schools is on the verge of collapse. Teachers are not protected in jungle-like school settings where students assault teachers and parents file malicious complaints. The reason why the Netflix drama ‘True Education’ is so popular is probably because of the thirst for ‘justice’ and ‘protection of teaching rights’ that are missing in reality. The discussion on establishing a ‘Teaching Rights Protection Bureau’ proposed by Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education Superintendent-elect Ahn Min-seok should be actively reviewed as a minimum institutional mechanism to restore order in schools and create an environment in which teachers can focus on teaching students.

At both extremes of the educational field, there are also positive efforts, such as Naju City's English camp. It is a form of future-oriented education for the local community to step forward and run a residential program to develop students' global capabilities. However, even these hopeful efforts are not seeing the light of day because they are overshadowed by the huge wave of teachers' lack of morality, the school's lack of a sense of security, and the decline of teaching authority. In order for schools to become places that instill good character and values ​​rather than just delivering knowledge to students, there is an urgent need for educational institutions to improve their systems along with self-purification efforts.