Authorities to directly intervene in teachers’ rights violation cases
Teachers no longer have to be sole handlers of malicious complaints from parents
The Ministry of Education on Thursday announced a package of measures aimed at strengthening protections for teachers’ rights and curbing malicious complaints against educators, allowing more direct intervention from the authorities in such cases.
Under the plan, when serious violations of teachers’ authority -- including assault or sexual harassment -- occur, the Teachers’ Authority Protection Committee will recommend that the region’s superintendents file criminal complaints against students or parents directly with law enforcement, rather than leaving the burden on individual teachers. The committee is under the city or provincial education offices, and is entrusted with deliberating matters related to teachers’ rights.
School principals will also be granted emergency powers to intervene, including ordering students or parents to halt abusive complaints or rights-violating behavior, requesting their removal from school premises and restricting campus access.
Principals may also impose measures such as class reassignment or temporary suspension even before the Teachers’ Authority Protection Committee reaches a decision, to ensure prompt separation between victims and perpetrators.
The measures were unveiled at the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education’s Educational Activity Protection Center, during a joint briefing by the ministry and the National Association of Superintendents of Education of Korea.
Penalties for parents who refuse mandatory special education or psychological counseling after infringing on teachers’ rights will also be strengthened. While fines are currently imposed on a graduated basis, the revised system would levy a flat fine of 3 million won ($2,200).
Support for teachers who suffer serious harm will also be expanded. Educators who experience major violations such as assault or sexual violence will be eligible for up to 10 days of leave for mental health recovery.
However, a proposal to record serious teacher rights violations in students’ official school records was excluded from the final plan amid sharp divisions among teachers’ groups, labor unions, education offices and parents.
The ministry said the issue would be revisited during future legislative discussions.
“Acknowledging concerns that schools could become overly judicialized amid conflicting stakeholder opinions, we decided to exclude the measure at this stage,” a ministry official said.
To shift the burden of complaint handling away from individual teachers, the government will standardize institutional response systems by introducing detailed manuals for school-level complaint response teams.
Schools will be required to consolidate complaint intake through designated channels, such as official school phone numbers or the online parent communication platform Ieodream, while complaints submitted through teachers’ personal phone numbers or social media will be prohibited.
Meanwhile, the number of Educational Activity Protection Centers will double from 55 in 2025 to more than 110 in 2026, providing one-stop services ranging from early dispute mediation to legal support.
The ministry also plans to install an additional 750 dedicated complaint counseling rooms in schools by 2026 and expand training for administrators on conflict management and protection of teacher rights.
“We will do our best to create an educational environment where teachers can focus fully on teaching, so that teaching is fulfilling and learning is joyful,” Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin said.
The announcement comes more than two years after the death of a teacher at Seoi Elementary School in 2023, who is believed to have taken her own life after suffering from malicious complaints from parents.
Since then, debates over teacher authority have intensified, with teachers’ groups arguing that educators remain vulnerable to verbal abuse, defamation and threats related to grading and discipline.
However, teachers’ groups say Thursday's measures do not go far enough.
“Unless meaningful changes are made, the measures risk becoming yet another superficial safeguard rather than a plan that genuinely protects teachers from malicious complaints,” the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union said in a statement.
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