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November 28, 2009
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Only a few minutes into the hearing, some 20 angry principals of foreign language high schools walked out of the room en masse to protest against the measures they define as “highly partial and unrealistic.” “Not only the researchers [belonging to a task force that came up with the reform proposals] but also the public hearing participants consist of people unfavorable to foreign language high schools,” said Kang Sung-hwa, principal of Goyang Foreign Language High School, at a press conference afterwards. He claimed the researchers hired by the Education Ministry to devise reform plans only spent an hour with each principal of the foreign language high schools getting information about the schools. Park Bu-kwon, a professor of education at Dongguk University who heads the task force, spoke at the beginning of the hearing about the problem of high private education fees. “Foreign language high schools send their students to top schools because they selected top students at middle schools. “Under the current situation, it is hard to reduce private education spending and to normalize education at ordinary high schools,” he said. Kim Jin-pyo, a lawmaker with the main opposition Democratic Party and former Education Minister under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, claimed foreign language high schools “should not have been born,” since they only contributed to a college entrance centered culture. He argued that these special-purpose schools should be abolished and the government should force other special-purpose schools such as science high schools to maintain 10 percent of the entire high school enrollments nationwide. On Thursday, the task force proposed that the government either abolish a sizable portion of existing foreign language high schools or transform them into ordinary schools, starting in 2013. Heads of private foreign language high schools opposed the reform measure the most. Han Hyun-su, principal of Ewha Girls’ Foreign Language High School, said the reform plans seemed to be aimed at alienating private schools. By Seo Ji-eun [spring@joongang.co.kr] JoongAng daily Hot issue
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