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Office of Education of Gangwon Province Rejects Recommendation by NHRCK
Date : 2007.02.28 00:00:00
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The Office of Education of Gangwon Province expressed its refusal to accept a recommendation by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), saying that it would be undesirable to reflect opinions of students in determining whether high school admissions in the region should be conducted by free competition or by lottery because of their immature sense of judgment.
The Gangwon Solidarity for Education (headed by Hyo-Mun Kim) filed a complaint, stating that the Office of Education of Gangwon Province excluded students (directly interested parties) from the determination of the high school entrance system in Chuncheon, Wonju, and Gangreung, violating children’s right to freely express their opinions explicitly provided in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The NHRCK determined that the Office of Education of Gangwon Province excluded the opinions of students from the decision-making on their high school entrance system, even though the students are directly interested party. The Commission recommended on December 6, 2006 that the Office of Education redress the situation.
The NHRCK confirmed through investigation that the Office of Education of Gangwon Province had completely excluded student representatives from an opinion poll conducted in April 2006 on the design of the high school entrance system (in which 500 respondents respectively representing parents, teachers, and experts in Gangreung, Chuncheon and Wonju were surveyed) as well as from participation in an advisory council and its steering committee pertaining to the system organized in May 2005 to push for improvements. The NHRCK also found that the ratio of parents who were deemed to represent students in the composition of such entities was significantly low.
The NHRCK accordingly determined that the Office of Education’s decision was inconsistent with the basic purport and goal of Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that “states shall guarantee the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child”, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 4 of the Juvenile Welfare Support Act. The NHRCK recommended the superintendent of the Office of Education seek ways to properly reflect the opinions of students, who are important and directly interested parties, in the decision on the design of the high school entrance scheme.
The superintendent notified the NHRCK of his refusal to accept the recommendation on grounds that (i) it would be undesirable to reflect the opinions of students as they lack the necessary maturity to offer meaningful input on an educational policy of such vital importance; and (ii) a proposed improvement to the high school entrance system and related guidelines had already been finalized and announced based on opinions collected from a wide spectrum of the population.
The NHRCK determined that public announcement of the details above was necessary and released the details to the press on February 13, 2007 pursuant to Article 25(4) of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea Act.
