Explosive interest has been shown in the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education's open recruitment for "Teachers' Rights Protection Officers," an initiative pushed to restore collapsed authority in the classroom.
A total of 1,823 people applied for the recruitment of 50 positions, recording a high competition rate of 36 to 1.
The backgrounds of the applicants are diverse.
Along with some 880 former and current educators, a large number of professionals from various fields applied, including lawyers, doctors, police officers, counselors, professors, traditional Korean medicine doctors, and journalists.
Teachers' Rights Protection Officers will play a role in providing close, one-on-one support to affected teachers from initial response to case closure when severe violations of teachers' rights, reports of child abuse, or malicious complaints occur.
Gyeonggi Superintendent of Education Ahn Min-seok held a press conference and said, "This is the result of the urgent aspirations of provincial residents converging to restore collapsed teachers' rights together," adding, "Seeing this level of interest, I think we can restore teachers' rights in Gyeonggi Province within a year."
[Ahn Min-seok / Superintendent of Education, Gyeonggi Province: I see this as the result of a widespread consensus among our provincial residents and parents that we must protect teachers.] Considering the unexpectedly high number of applicants and their expertise, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education has decided to review plans to increase the number of successful candidates.
In addition, the office plans to comprehensively review the operation of "Citizen Teachers' Rights Protection Officers" to utilize outstanding applicants who were not selected, as well as the formation of an advisory group proposed by the provincial council.
Consequently, the announcement of final successful candidates, originally scheduled for the end of this month, has been postponed to August 10.
Starting with this system, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education plans to make all-out efforts to declare "Gyeonggi Teachers' Rights Restoration Day" to coincide with the 4th anniversary of the passing of the teacher at Seoi Elementary School in July of next year.
(Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Lee Yu-jin | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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