Park Eunjeong: "Checking If They're Alive by Phone? ... 900 Never-Enrolled and Long-Term Absent Students Left Unattended"

Threefold gap in injury treatment coverage under the teacher protection mutual aid program in Jeonnam and Gwangju
"Support levels should be equalized upward to match the integrated education office"

Park Eunjeong, a council member of Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City (Democratic Party of Korea, proportional representation), criticized education authorities for their lax checks of safety measures for nearly 900 students in the Jeonnam and Gwangju regions who have not enrolled in school or have been absent for an extended period.

According to data released by Park during an administrative audit of the education office on Friday, 374 students in Jeonnam are currently not enrolled and 298 have been absent for an extended period, while the number of children in Gwangju who are not enrolled stands at 303.

Park Eunjung, former council member of Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City.

Park criticized the repeated practice of education support offices relying solely on phone calls to determine the whereabouts of children who do not attend school because they attend unaccredited facilities (alternative schools), are homeschooled, or have an illness, and reporting cases to police only after delays.

"At least one in-person check per month is necessary for homeschooling households and others," she said. "Rather than focusing only on the upcoming elementary school enrollment orientation, authorities should routinely work alongside local governments and police to make careful home visits and directly check whether students actually live at their registered addresses and are safe."

Discrepancies in teacher protection policies that emerged after the launch of the integrated education office also became an issue. Park noted, "Under the teacher protection mutual aid program, the limit for injury treatment costs is 3 million won per incident in Gwangju, compared with 1 million won in Jeonnam, a threefold difference."

She added, "In Gwangju, compensation is determined based solely on a notice from the school principal, whereas in Jeonnam, cases must go through a committee, making the procedures excessively complicated." She urged the authorities to use the establishment of a teacher activity protection officer position in 2027 as an opportunity to improve support through upward equalization, rather than lowering it to the lowest level, so that teachers can be adequately protected.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.