“Free teachers from the malicious complaints of parents” Centralizing window for civil services at schools

Park Dae-chul, head of the People Power Party’s policy committee, speaks in a meeting of the party’s senior executives at the National Assembly on August 8. Bak Min-gyu, Senior Reporter

On August 10, Park Dae-chul, head of policy in the People Power Party (PPP) said, “Yesterday, the education ministry informed our party that it would introduce a centralized system for complaints at schools.” Park explained, “This will free teachers from the malicious complaints of parents.”

In a meeting of the party’s Supreme Council at the National Assembly this day, Park said, “The People Power Party and the Ministry of Education have discussed ways to restore teachers’ authority in several private discussions recently,” and announced, “We will improve the system so that all complaints will be handled by the school and not the individual teachers. A response team directly under the principal will be in charge of the complaints.” The response team will consist of around five people including the vice principal, the chief of administration, and a civil servant in the field of education.

Park further said, “According to the joint investigation of Seo2 Elementary School in Seoul, the parent made countless calls to the late teacher’s cell phone, which went unanswered. Then when the teacher did answer the call, the parent expressed severe anger, causing the teacher to be nervous.” He explained, “In the future, the window for complaints will be centralized and the teacher will have the right to reject calls on their personal cell phones.”

The chief of the PPP policy committee also said, “As for complaints irrelevant with educational activities, teachers will also be given the right to refuse an answer. In other words, teachers will be free from the malicious complaints of parents.” He added, “For the change, we will establish an online complaint system with advance reservation features and prepare a telephone in the school with recording and call waiting functions.”

The complaints will be categorized into those subject to a “direct solution,” those requiring “cooperation from the teacher in question,” and those “assigned to a supervisor.” The government will also develop and distribute a manual on how to respond to complaints including the rights and duties of the person filing the complaint and the person handling the complaint and the rules and procedure of resolving complaints.

Park Dae-chul said, “We will regard malicious complaints as a violation of educational activities and even take legal action against any illegal activities, such as filing a report in the name of the Office of Education.” According to Park, the education ministry will announce comprehensive measures to establish the authority of teachers including these measures in the near future.