40도의 고열이 앗아간 20대의 꿈, 우리 교육 현장의 서늘한 자화상 > K-wave Trends

The core of this incident is why the teacher gave up his right to rest even though he was sick with an infectious disease called the flu. The deceased faced physical limitations amid the excessive workload of preparing for kindergarten presentations and new student orientation. In particular, due to the structural characteristics of private kindergartens, the one-teacher-per-class system was entrenched, so the absence of one teacher directly led to work paralysis or a burden on colleagues. The part where the deceased, despite his family's dissuasion, asked, "How can I rest when they tell me not to come out?" clearly shows the job insecurity and closed organizational culture felt by private kindergarten teachers. Low wages of around 2 million won and one-year contract status have become shackles that make even complaining of pain feel like a luxury to teachers.

The process of recognizing an occupational accident was never smooth. The Private Teachers' Pension Service seemed to ignore the uniqueness of the educational field by withholding the decision in the first deliberation with an equal number of pros and cons. Accordingly, the bereaved family and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union persistently obtained and submitted statistics and statements from fellow teachers showing that 43 out of 120 students were exposed to the flu during the time the deceased worked, and that he was exposed to a mass infection situation. This was to prove that it was not a simple personal disease, but that the nature of teachers' work, which requires close contact with children in enclosed spaces, was the direct cause of the outbreak of the infectious disease. In the end, as more than 14,000 citizens and teachers joined in signing the petition, an official social consensus was finally reached that the deceased's death was a ‘disaster caused by the working environment’ rather than a ‘personal health care negligence’.

This incident brought to the surface the chronic staffing problems at private kindergartens. Many private kindergartens are unincorporated and have private operating systems, so there are many cases where there is no transparent human resource management system. As there is no pool of substitute teachers who can be immediately deployed in unavoidable situations such as infectious diseases or congratulations or condolences, teachers are forced to return to the classroom sick, repeating a vicious cycle. Moreover, excessive complaints from parents and fear of being stigmatized as child abuse further discourage teachers. In this environment, the reality is that one in three private kindergarten teachers leaves the field after less than a year of employment, which will inevitably lead to a decline in the quality educational services that should be delivered to children.

Some in the education community are raising their voices, saying that recognition of this disaster is only the first step toward restoring the honor of the deceased, and that fundamental measures must begin now. Education groups, including the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, are strongly demanding the establishment of an institutional mechanism that can practically guarantee sick leave in the event of an infectious disease outbreak. Specifically, the government should take responsibility for teachers' right to health by drastically improving the current standards for calculating the number of teachers based on the number of classes and introducing an additional quota system to prepare for emergency situations such as infectious diseases. In addition, actively promoting the incorporation of private kindergartens to ensure the public nature of their operation and establishing a safe working environment where teachers can focus solely on children's education is the only way to ensure that the sacrifice of the deceased is not in vain.