Busan Office of Education Selected as an Excellent Institution for Operating Integrity Citizen Auditors

Citizen Auditor Lee Hyun-man Presents Best Practices at National Integrity Workshop
'Participation in School Me Too Incident Audits and Institutional Improvements for Recurrence Prevention'

On the 13th, at the '2020 Integrity Citizen Auditor Workshop' held at Seoul Science Comprehensive Graduate School in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Lee Hyun-man, a citizen auditor from Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, is presenting an exemplary case.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The Busan Metropolitan Office of Education was selected as an excellent institution for operating the Integrity Citizen Auditor by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and presented best practices at the ‘2020 Integrity Citizen Auditor Workshop’ held on the 13th at the Seoul Institute of Science and Technology in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul.

The selection of the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education as an excellent institution is interpreted as a result of efforts for transparent Busan education by combining public and private sectors to deploy citizen auditors with expertise in each field to audit sites and actively accepting citizen auditors’ suggestions for institutional improvements based on audit results.

At this presentation, Lee Hyun-man, a citizen auditor from the city education office, attended as the institution’s representative and presented under the theme ‘Participation in Audits Due to the Occurrence of School Me Too and Suggestions for Institutional Improvements to Prevent Recurrence.’ This was broadcast live online to metropolitan and basic local governments nationwide as well as city and provincial offices of education.

Citizen auditor Lee Hyun-man focused on the case where two citizen auditors with expertise in gender issues actively participated in the audit when the Busan area School Me Too incident occurred in March 2019.

The city education office’s citizen auditors also submitted a 10-page proposal containing seven institutional improvement plans to prevent recurrence of School Me Too and to fundamentally change school culture, titled ‘School Me Too is a Cry Demanding a New School Culture that Embraces Human Rights and Dignity and Communicates,’ to the city education office.

Among these, the suggestion to ‘Reinforce Dedicated Professional Personnel for School Me Too’ resulted in the formation and operation of 13 citizen investigators specializing in sexual human rights.

Lee Il-kwon, auditor of the city education office, said, “This achievement is the result of citizen auditors actively taking the lead as the main agents of Busan education,” and added, “We will continue to support citizen auditors so that they can take the lead in improving corruption and unreasonable aspects in the education field.”