NHRC issues recommendation to Chungnam Province Superintendent of Educational Affairs to give equal treatment to job applicants with skills licensed from privately-administered qualification exams
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) confirmed that non-recognition of certified civil technical qualification exam scores is discriminatory conduct and issued a recommendation to the Chungnam Province Superintendent of Educational Affairs to treat equally both test scores from “national technical qualification exams” (administered by the state) and those from “civil technical qualification exams” (administered by certified private agencies). The recommendation follows a July 2002 complaint filed by Mr. Cho, 58, who claimed that the Chungnam Province Educational Affairs Superintendent had discriminated against applicants with “civil technical qualification exam” accreditation by excluding points accruable from those test scores when computing a given applicant’s overall candidacy score because those tests were conducted by certified private agencies.
Cho, who is in charge of the “Korea Association of Information Management” division covering Daejon City, Busan City and Chungnam Province, filed the case upon seeing that primary school teacher Heo had requested that the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development—in accordance with article 27 of the Framework Act on Qualifications—undertake measures to ensure equal treatment for applicants with civil technical qualification test scores and national technical qualification test scores. In his complaint, Cho charged that the constitutional right to equality (article 11 of the Korean Constitution) was infringed when the Chungnam Province Office of Education omitted word processing skills test scores and computer literacy skills test scores, because those tests were not state-administered ones, from overall candidacy scores when evaluating applicants for promotion to the Vice-Principal position.
The NHRC investigation found the facts of the case to be as follows.
As of 2003, 39 qualifications in 10 fields relating to computer literacy and information technology (IT) skills had been opened to civil-sector technical qualification testing services. “Word processing” had been certified as a civil technical qualification (that private institutions can carry out testing for) in December 2000 by the Minister of Labor. The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development had sent a formal document to the Office of Education of every metropolitan city and province instructing each office to “take measures to ensure that people accredited under ‘civil technical qualification tests’ are treated on part with those accredited under ‘national technical qualification tests.’” In conformity with this policy, the Offices of Education in Chungbuk and Gyeonggi Provinces included test scores from word processing qualification tests administered by certified private agencies when calculating a job candidate’s overall qualifications score.
In Chungnam Province, however, the Office of Education, in computing job candidates’ overall qualifications level, included scores from the word processing test when it was administered by the state (“national qualification test”) but excluded scores when accredited by private agencies under civil qualification tests. The Chungnam Office claimed that it was difficult to confirm whether a private testing service was indeed certified by the government because there were too many organizations carrying out certified testing.
The NHRC found that the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development had formally informed, in writing, each Office of Education as to the names of the certified private testing agencies every year and thus, the supposed difficulty of confirming the certification of a testing service is not so arduous as to justify discriminatory treatment. Additionally, since the privately-administered word processing skills test and the state-administered word processing skills test were equivalent, the NHRC confirmed that “excluding civil technical qualification test scores from a candidate’s overall score in selecting a public school teacher for promotion is discriminatory conduct violating article 11 (equality) of the Constitution and contravenes article 27 of the Fundamental Act on Qualifications.”
