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| Woo Dong-gi / Courtesy of Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education |
The move will essentially lead parents to cut their investment in English education for their children.
Education offices seem to be fueling the trend with pros and cons discussions about delisting English from compulsory subjects in primary and secondary schools curriculums. The delisting is not a mainstream idea, at least for now. But holding discussions over the matter itself reflects the fact the mighty status of English is in jeopardy.
The law is the last resort for English to maintain its status quo. The Elementary and Middle School Education Laws labels English as a compulsory subject, along with Korean, mathematics, general science and physical education.
So what's the fate of English? It hinges on the law.
Woo Dong-gi, superintendent of Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education, is a vocal advocate demanding English be "degraded" into an optional subject.
In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Woo said the English education policy had caused a "great amount of loss."
"Rather than offering a standardized English education, we need a program fit for a student's talent and career path," he said.
To that end, he said, local education offices should be given more autonomy to revise and organize the curriculum of schools under their control.
"In a society that continues to grow diverse, a standard education curriculum will not properly prepare students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution," he said. "I believe that changing English from a compulsory subject to an optional one would be one of the key steps that should be taken."
The following are the excerpts from the interview.
Q. What made you think of changing English into an option?
I had a conversation with a student who came from Vietnam. This student was born in Korea, but had a Vietnamese mother. I thought that the student would be bilingual. However, the student did not know how to speak Vietnamese at all. I found out that people thought that Vietnamese was useless and that learning Vietnamese would be disruptive while learning English and Korean. The student lost the opportunity to learn Vietnamese due to this mindset. This is a great national loss. [In Daegu, although the number of students is falling, multicultural families grew from 1,423 in 2013 to 3,400 in 2017]
Q. What do you believe is the societal damage or side-effects from English being a compulsory subject?
Learning by rote, or teaching English heavily focused on grammar, is not a functional education system. Students will not be able to communicate and collaborate in a global platform. There is a need to broaden the curriculum and make an environment that teaches students to become fluent bilinguals, not just in English and Korean.
Q. Can autonomy decrease the negative effects of compulsory English?
Yes. We have to embrace diverse languages, not just English. Students should be given the choice to pick a language they wish to learn. Also, we should be allowed to customize the education program to the school or district's environment and student's requests.
Q. What is the reason behind autonomy?
Our education system has received a lot of criticism throughout the year because our system has not changed much. It has carried the same standardized curriculum. For us to prepare our students for the future, we should be given more autonomy.
Elementary and Middle School Education Law Article 23 says the fundamental parts of the education curriculum are decided by the minister of education and the superintendent of the district education office follows and operates accordingly. There is not much self-governance.
Q. If autonomy to each district office increases, the subjects covered or the quality of classes may become very different, and some students may feel marginalized.
Even if more autonomy is given to the regional offices, the general flow will not change much. The government would still control the total payroll costs, the screening systems, among other general matters.
What is urgent is the need to respond to the future. There is a need for fostering talents that can thrive in diverse fields.
Q. How will you determine the supply and demand of teachers for various languages? Would it not be an excessive cost for a small number of students?
We cannot expect a groundbreaking change in the short-term. We must first find a social consensus by analyzing the supply and demand. We should start in regions that have the highest demand, and make English an elective. If we provide other languages as an option, then we will be taking a step towards diversification. The future will benefit from a rich and complex language exposure.
