[Editorial] Park Geun Hye Wants to Defend School Corruption?

The area in front of the National Assembly looks like a war zone, though one without gunshots, over the Private School Law. An organization of private schools held a massive protest on Thursday and threatened to close their schools if forced to open up their boards of trustees to members not appointed by the chairperson. Grand National Party (GNP) chairwoman Park Geun Hye, herself formerly the chairwoman of the foundation that owns Yeungnam University, said she is going to "throw myself at preventing the legislation from passing because it attacks the key values of democracy and market economics." An umbrella organization formed by hundreds of civic and other groups has held "one-man protests" and candlelight protests for almost a year now saying that unless the law is revised, the country has no choice but to entrust its children to high-handed operating foundations and corrupt institutions.

No one can deny the contributions of private schools have made to the barren landscape that was modern Korean education. Today, however, many private institutions are means for certain elite cliques to make money or as channels for spreading certain religions and ideologies. Park Geun Hye surely knows about the phenomenon, since in 1988 she had to step down from her position as chairwoman of the board of trustees at Yeungnam after the board was implicated in admissions irregularities, embezzlement of public funds, and bribery. Corruption at private universities is made possible by the lack of anything in place to keep the trustees, many of whom are mutual family relatives, in check. When a board wants to engage in accounting fraud or change school policy at will, there is nothing to hold it back and it can punish any whistleblowers.

Requiring that there are trustees from outside the foundation is the least that can be done to rectify the problems. Private educational institutions are still public assets, with most of their operational funding coming from the national treasury. There is, therefore, no reason to keep trustees nominated by a public body from participating in board activities. Private companies have board members from outside the company. The GNP has among its membership many who are or were part of private universities that have faced charges of corruption. What Park needs to "throw herself at preventing" is not the passage of a revision to the Private School Law but corruption at the foundations that operate private universities.

The Hankyoreh, 9 December 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]