New System to Prevent Forced Attendance of Ill Kindergarten Teachers

From now on, "itinerant teachers" will be deployed to fill teaching vacancies when kindergarten teachers need to take emergency leave due to illness or other reasons.

Additionally, counseling and reporting centers will be operated to address the personnel grievances of kindergarten teachers, and disciplinary measures such as suspension will be imposed on principals of private kindergartens where serious issues are identified.

The Ministry of Education announced these measures today (June 16) as part of its "Improvement Plan for Substitute Teacher Support in Kindergartens."

This initiative was prompted by an incident last February, in which a teacher at a private kindergarten in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, passed away after being forced to continue working despite suffering from a high fever due to the flu.

An assessment of the current status of substitute teacher support in kindergartens revealed significant regional disparities, such as a lack of substitute teachers or instructors to cover classes, and the exclusion of sick leave from the labor cost support provided for substitute personnel in private kindergartens.

The Ministry of Education plans to first amend the Early Childhood Education Act to establish a legal basis for educational administrative agencies to employ itinerant teachers.

Itinerant teachers will provide support for classes at kindergartens when a regular teacher needs to be absent on short notice.

In normal circumstances, they will perform duties at their home institutions, such as local offices of education or early childhood education promotion centers, and will be dispatched to kindergartens to fill teaching gaps when urgent support is required.

In addition to itinerant teachers, instructors will be stationed at hub institutions, such as stand-alone public kindergartens, to provide support to nearby kindergartens.

Efforts to improve the working conditions of private kindergarten teachers are also underway.

Metropolitan and provincial offices of education plan to operate counseling and reporting centers to assist with the personnel grievances of private kindergarten teachers.

The ministry intends to conduct immediate inspections of kindergartens identified through reports submitted to these centers, and in serious cases, will impose disciplinary actions such as salary reduction or suspension for the kindergarten principals involved.

Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Lee Ui-seon | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.