Open Board System Swings Back

Private School Law Only Leaves Dishonorable Records-

In the December 2005 amendment of private school law, the Uri Party forcibly put the issue to vote through the authority of the assembly speaker with the absence of the Grand National Party.

Assemblyman Yoo Jae-geon, who chaired the Uri Party in January 2006, said “Not a word in the amended private school law can be altered.” Assemblyman Jeong Bong-ju, who was the then chief secretary of the Uri Party to the Education Committee of the National Assembly, said, “Private school law is the brain of the Uri Party.”

Having triggered a preservation-amendment controversy, not only in the political circle but in various other circles, the private school law has finally come to be re-amended through the authority of the assembly speaker only a year and a half after the first amendment. It is an easy guess that the Uri Party could no longer neglect the demands from religious circles on the amendment of the private school law when the presidential election is fast-approaching and when Uri Party seats have been reduced to half, from 152 seats to 73. In the end, what is left of the private school law is the record of the two amendments, two vote-castings through authority, and two physical fights among assemblymen.

Only the Open Board Regulation Remains-

At the core of this re-amendment of the private school law is the change in the assignment of the “open board.” The amended private school law of December 2005 stipulates that the administration committee of schools shall recommend the first half of the board and the foundation shall decide whom to appoint among the recommended nominees.

But the new re-amended law has increased the influence of private schools, more so than the original. An open committee for the recommendation of the board members should be established, and the committee should be recommended by the administration committee and the foundation. In the case of general private schools, the administration committee recommends the majority, and in the case of universities which educate religious persons, the foundation recommends the majority.

The amended law also allows the chief director to reside as the president or the chief director of another school. The president of a school could be reappointed no more than twice, but there is no such regulation in the amended law.

Thus the only justification remaining is the preservation of the open board system. The rest has swung back to the law before the December 2005 amendment. Many point out that this is the result of forcibly carrying out the passing of the law due to haunting by the “reform dogma,” while neglecting the reality of schools.

The Past and Present of the “Reform” Enforcements-

Chun Jung-bae, the first Chair of Assembly after the Uri Party took the majority in the 17th general election with the help of “impeachment fever,” set forth the enforcement of the four reform laws as his foremost priority.

But the national security law, which had aroused nationwide controversy, has gone up in smoke without a result. The newspaper act was passed by the Assembly in 2005, after many twists and turns, but in June 2006 the Constitutional Court found a clause in this law unconstitutional – “a newspaper company is a market dominator when its market share is above 30% or when the market share of three newspaper companies is above 60%.” The Act for Truth and Reconciliation was passed by the Assembly in 2005 through an agreement between both parties, but controversy remains over the constitutionality concerning the statute of limitations.

At a press conference held in November 2006, the former chair Chung Dong-young, who chaired the Uri Party twice, explained the cause of the Uri Party’s failure, saying, “It was wrong to cover the Uri Party with the cap of “the four reform enactments.”

jin0619@donga.com