Teachers Consider Their Human Rights More Important Than Those of Students and Parents
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had contracted with the Busan Education Research Institute (the Busan Institue) to conduct the human rights awareness research for 1,560 elementary, junior and high school teachers nationwide, as a part of the year 2002"s human rights condition research. This research had been conducted with various methods such as the observational study, the group interview survey. The questionaire focused on matters as follows: knowledge about human rights; human rights conscience of teachers, parents and students; and how much teachers put human rights in practice to promote human rights.
This survey asked questions to measure teachers" understanding of and concern for such human rights as: the right not to be discriminated because of one"s sex, age, and social status; the right for free expression; rights to preserve one"s teaching philosophy; freedom of conscience.
In order to measure students" awareness of human rights, the research inquired into stuednts" understanding of and concern for such human rights as: the right to receive a meaningful education; the right to privacy; the right for autonomy; the right not to be subjected to corporal punishment, and the right for students to be informed before the student receives punishment.
The Busan Institute observed that over half of the interviewees who were teachers replied four rights among six rights for teachers are "very important,": the right not to be discriminated by the sex of a teacher, the right to have and preserve teaching philosophy, and the right to deny unethical duty and/or direction that might not coincide with their conscience. However, teachers replied the students" and parents" rights are comparatively less important.
This research showed that teachers" consciousness about the students" rights, such as freedom of hairstyle and dress code, rights to object to a physical examination or inspection on lockers and any of their belongings, appeared relatively low.
In addition, more than nienty persent of teachers replied that the right of students to be punished by some means other than corporal is "very important" or "important." However, eight and a half percent of teachers who are in their 50s replied that rights is "not important" and thirty-nine percent of them answered "not so important."
According to in-depth interviews, some teachers revealed that they try to make the student perform better by frightening them - especially early in the new school term - and they need to give corporal punishments and inspections of students" belongings in order to do so. They maintain this is especially necessary to prepare students to enter higher educational institutions.
More than half of the teachers answered they have experienced the following rights violations: the right not to be discriminated by their social status; the right to have their opinions respected in regards to budget, personnel decisions, school system, and administrative decision; the right to have and preserve teaching philosophy; and the right to deny unethical duty and order that might conflict with their conscience. Also half of the teachers replied that they had violated students" rights on freedom of hair style and dress code, the rights to privacy. By these results, we can conclude that teachers are both the subjects causing human rights infringements and at the same time, are the objects of human rights violations in school.
Eighty-four percent of the teachers replied that they had never received human rights education and only twenty-one percent replied that they are well aware of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenants on Human Rights. However, they are very interested in human rights issues, such as foreign workers" rights; women" rights; human rights protection for the handicapped, children, and inmates in the detention facilities; human rights violations by state official. Moreover, about ninety percent of the teachers expressed a desire to join a human rights education program.
After examining the results of this research, the NHRC concluded that human rights education for teachers is urgently needed, in order to implement human rights in school system. Therefore, the NHRC will cooperate with relevant institutes to initiate a systematic education program for teachers and students in near future.
