In Teacher Evaluations, Student's Comment 'XX is Big' Considered Sexual Harassment... Ministry of Education Says "Filtering Improvement"

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] A controversy has arisen after it was revealed that a student at a high school in Sejong City left sexually harassing remarks in the descriptive questions of the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation. While the teachers' union demanded the abolition of the evaluation, the Ministry of Education stated that it will inspect and improve the filtering system.

According to the teachers' union on the 5th, a student at a certain high school in Sejong wrote human rights-violating content in the free descriptive questions of the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation, such as "XX is bigger, is that the part where milk comes out if squeezed?", "XX is small.", and "Kim Jong-un, be happy - do it."

The Sejong City Office of Education reportedly conveyed that since the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation is conducted anonymously, it is difficult to investigate or punish the offending student. The victimized teacher, despite having been sexually harassed, is in a situation where they must return to school without any countermeasures.

Park Geun-byeong, chairman of the Seoul Teachers' Union, pointed out, "Teacher evaluations are conducted every year, but sexually harassing remarks are becoming increasingly severe, which led the affected party to bring this issue to public attention," adding, "Teachers' human rights themselves are being violated, so it is urgent to improve the evaluation system or take measures."

The Ministry of Education has responded by applying a "filtering system" to the descriptive questions of the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation to filter out inappropriate answers that infringe on teachers' human rights. However, when students alter abusive or derogatory expressions, it has been difficult to filter them all out, resulting in numerous cases where teachers suffer harm.

The Ministry of Education has used an automatic filtering system applied to teacher evaluations that, upon detecting prohibited words, requires students or parents to revise and resubmit their answers. Since last year, this system has been improved so that if prohibited words are included, the entire response is not delivered to the respective teacher. Nevertheless, cases that circumvent the filtering system continue to appear.

The Ministry of Education maintains that there is no problem with the evaluation system itself and plans to respond by supplementing the filtering system. A Ministry of Education official said, "We confirmed that the filtering system is not functioning properly, and we will conduct a comprehensive inspection and discussion including other city and provincial offices of education besides Sejong City Office of Education to improve the filtering system."

The teachers' union has urged the abolition of the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation, which lacks protective measures, and has filed complaints against the offender for cyber defamation and insult under criminal law. The teachers' union stated, "Many teachers have suffered personal insults and sexual harassment through free descriptive questions, and for this reason, the number of teachers who do not even read the descriptive questions is increasing," adding, "Contrary to the Ministry of Education's intentions, the Teacher Competency Development Evaluation does not contribute to enhancing teachers' professionalism but rather only causes teachers to feel defeated and humiliated."