The education ministry has issued guidelines on negotiating with teachers' unions to omit issues that are not strictly related to working conditions, officials said Wednesday, a move critics say is intended to keep liberal provincial education chiefs under control.
According to the ministry manual distributed to local educational offices, negotiable agendas are limited to labor conditions, such as pay, training, working hours, vacation and welfare. Working conditions and other policies at schools are largely determined at a provincial level between local superintendents and teachers' organizations.
The manual says local education boards are prohibited from discussing such issues as education policies, school management, personnel recruitment, curriculum and student rights, all of which have become controversial.
The move comes amid persisting tension between the ministry and liberal education chiefs who were elected in last year's local elections. They have clashed over policies including free school lunch programs, student rights ordinances and standardized tests.
Some experts see the ministry's guidelines as aimed at blocking teachers' unions in advance from pushing through their agendas in cooperation with superintendents sympathetic to them. Others question the effectiveness of the guidelines, with some local boards already having concluded talks with the unions.
The education board of Gangwon Province, for example, already has struck an agreement with a teachers' union that bans standardized tests.
"We will request the labor ministry's cooperation to correct irregularities and file a suit (against violators), if necessary, and continue to inform (local educational offices) to prevent such cases," a ministry official said.