Demanding action: Protesters holding up signs reading ‘Revealing the truth is the way to pay respect’ during a rally demanding the protection of teachers’ rights in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on Sept 4. — AFP
Teachers in South Korea will be eligible for free counselling under a new 10 billion won (RM34.75mil) government plan launched in response to mounting concerns over their mental health.
Under the plan announced earlier this month by Education Ministry and Health and Welfare Ministry, teachers will be eligible for free psychological tests and have their mental health treatments fully covered by the government.
The ministries said they see an urgent need for counselling and support to prevent teachers from falling into depression.
The initiative will run for the second school semester, from September till February 2024, after which the two ministries will jointly plan a fresh budget for the new school year.
Teachers may choose to take the mental health tests online, or seek help at national or private medical centres nationwide.
Mobile counselling buses will also be rolled out to schools so that teachers can get easier access to specialists.
On the cards are psychological testing tools that will allow teachers to take stock of their mental health every two years.
“Teachers are the most crucial agents in the field of education, and their mental well-being is essential for the safe functioning of educational activities in schools,” Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho said, adding that the joint task force will continue looking into efforts to help teachers.
Lee’s ministry has come under fire after experts warned of a looming mental health crisis for the country’s teaching profession, following a series of at least 15 teacher suicides so far in 2023.
The most high-profile suicide was that of a 23-year-old teacher who killed herself in the classroom of Seoi Elementary School in Gangnam on July 18.
The suicide sparked weekend rallies in the capital Seoul by teachers and supporters from all over the country, in support of greater protection of teachers’ rights.
They have also called for revisions to South Korea’s child welfare and abuse laws to put a stop to cases of parents filing malicious and unfounded complaints against teachers.
A survey of 3,505 teachers in August underlined the gravity of the situation: It found that four in 10 teachers reported severe symptoms of depression, while 16% said they have had suicidal thoughts.
Out of these, 4.5% said they had gone to the extent of making specific plans to take their own lives but did not do so.
Respondents attributed the cause of their depression to the high number of phone and in-person consultations with parents, as well as complaints and the verbal and physical violence they suffered.
In the latest suicide case, an elementary school teacher from Daejeon city in central Korea had reportedly suffered years of harassment from parents.
The 42-year-old teacher, who had taught for 24 years, in 2019 made students who had been caught fighting apologise to the rest of their class.
But the upset parents of the students involved lodged repeated complaints of child abuse against her – 14 over the past five years, said the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education.
Despite the charges being dropped as they were deemed to lack merit, the teacher came under immense stress and had to go for counselling.
She attempted suicide on Sept 5 and died of her injuries two days later.
Her death has, in turn, led to a witch-hunt of the parents behind the malicious complaints, with people exposing their personal details on the Internet and targeting their businesses.
Public anger is at a high as more cases of teachers suffering abuse from parents come to light.
It is protection from such malicious complaints and accusations that teachers sorely need from the government, if the problem is to be solved, according to elementary school teacher Kang Hyun-ju.
Kang, 27, has been undergoing monthly counselling sessions and is on six months’ medical leave after suffering a panic attack earlier in 2023 attributed to accumulated stress in dealing with disruptive students over her six years of teaching.
She said her medical costs were mostly covered by the country’s national health insurance scheme, and she paid a total of about 200,000 won (RM695) after heavy subsidies.
But other teachers could be suffering from more severe conditions and thus paying far more, she added.
“With this new plan, it shows that the Ministry of Education is finally paying attention to teachers’ mental health. They did not do so previously,” she said.
Nonetheless, she noted: “It is really, really important to find true solutions to our problems. Solve the problem that is making us teachers sick in the first place. Don’t just care for us only after we are wounded.”
Kang is among the 26.6% of more than 11,000 teachers surveyed by the Federation of Teachers Labour Unions in April, who said they had received mental health treatment or counselling in the past five years.
According to government data, about 100 public school teachers took their own lives between 2018 and June 2023, with 11 deaths occurring in the first half of 2023.
“It is a critical situation our schools are facing,” said psychiatrist Kim Hyun-soo, in his address to the 20,000-strong turnout at the National Assembly on Sept 18, where teachers and supporters held a memorial to mark the 49th day of the passing of the young teacher.
In July, Kim led the Korean Neuropsychiatric Association in issuing a strongly worded statement calling for an institutional mechanism to be set up to provide support to teachers and protect them from abuse.
Noting a rise in cases of physical and mental violence inflicted on teachers by parents and students in recent years, the association warned of a collapse in the country’s education system “if we continue to emphasise only the human rights of students while neglecting the rights and obligations of teachers”.
The heart of the issue lies with the child welfare law passed in 2014, which broadly states that “doing harm to a child’s health or welfare, or committing physical, mental or sexual violence, or cruel acts” constitutes child abuse.
Teachers accused of child abuse are automatically suspended, and the offence is punishable by law.
Teachers say this has skewed teachers’ interactions with both students and parents, as teachers are unable to mete out disciplinary action, even if the situation warrants it, since punishments are seen as a violation of the students’ physical integrity and human dignity.
There have been reports of teachers being assaulted by students as they are unable to retaliate or defend themselves.
In July, a third-grade student at a Busan elementary school hit and kicked a female teacher in her face and body.
The student was stopped only after other teachers intervened.
The teacher had broken bones and was hospitalised for three weeks.
A special needs teacher wrote in an online forum about a student who would frequently attack her by grabbing her hair and slamming her head against the desk. The student would also punch her in the face, causing her spectacles to break.
When she complained to the parents, they berated her for wearing spectacles instead of contact lenses, while another parent told her, “you make money because of the kids, so do it right”.
On online community platform Indischool, more than 2,000 stories have been shared by teachers in just three days.
One of the serious cases involved a parent who reportedly turned up at a school armed with an axe after his fourth-grader son was punished for threatening a schoolmate with a box cutter.
Won Ji-young, who has 26 years of teaching experience, saw first-hand the suffering of a close colleague who was accused of child abuse by the parent of a disruptive child. The teacher was acquitted only after a court process that stretched over two and a half years.
The child’s parent had hid a recorder in his clothes, and spliced together recordings of the teacher scolding the child. The parent lodged the complaint a day after arranging for the child’s transfer to another school.
Won teared up as she spoke about the stressful ordeal her colleague went through.
“It is not so much about the money she had to spend on legal fees, or the lack of support from the school or Education Ministry, it is about the teacher’s mental health. Just think about the stress of having to go on trial over a baseless claim, when all you wanted to do was to teach children whom you love.”
She said the situation was never as dire as after the law change, and fears she might have to quit her job one day just to protect her sanity.
“I can handle having a disruptive student in my class, but I do not think I can handle unreasonable parents. If I do quit teaching, it would be only because I want to protect my sanity.
“But teachers quitting will not resolve the issue: We need the laws to be changed.”
The demand for change has seen teachers like her gathering in Seoul for the past seven Saturdays.
Earlier this month, some 200,000 teachers poured into the eight-lane boulevard in front of the National Assembly, in what is said to be the largest-ever gathering of teachers in South Korea.
The teachers had come from all over the country on buses and even two planes from Jeju.
The rallies were a ground-up effort by members of the Indischool community formed by elementary school teachers throughout South Korea.
Beyond the calls for revisions to the child welfare and abuse laws, and to punish parents who file malicious and unfounded complaints, the teachers are also demanding that the Education Ministry do more to protect their rights.
In response to the growing demands for change, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho adopted a softer stance towards a separate group of teachers who staged a walkout on Sept 4.
Lee had earlier threatened teachers planning to take leave for the walkout, saying it would “constitute an illegal strike”.
On Sunday, he wrote a heartfelt public plea to the teachers, assuring them that his ministry “is in no way different from teachers in its desire to restore teachers’ lost authority”, while gently urging teachers to refrain from collective action.
The ministry has since announced it will push for legislative Bills to amend the child welfare and abuse laws, and for malicious complaints against teachers to be criminally prosecuted.
It also pledged a review of teachers’ rights every five years, to be tabled to the National Assembly.
But to both Won and Kang, the changes announced are still too little, and may be too late.
Kang, who is currently on a leave of absence for medical reasons and is mulling over a resignation, said: “For the sake of passionate teachers who still want to protect children who are innocent, it is crucial that the child abuse law is amended immediately to allow for separation from students exhibiting problematic behaviour.” — The Straits Times/ANN
