Demanding "complete repeal," not mere postponement, of the special act
Oh Seokjin, preliminary candidate for Daejeon Superintendent of Education (Photo provided by Oh Seokjin's campaign)
On the morning of the 24th, preliminary candidate for Daejeon Superintendent of Education Oh Seokjin issued an emergency statement after the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee decided to postpone deliberation on a special act to establish an integrated Chungnam-Daejeon metropolitan city, insisting that "the Legislation and Judiciary Committee must discard the bill, not merely put it on hold."
Preliminary candidate Oh said, "As I read reports that the special act to establish an integrated Chungnam-Daejeon metropolitan city in the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee has been put on hold due to strong opposition from Daejeon citizens, I regarded this as a natural outcome."
Regarding the postponement of this integration initiative, he evaluated it as "the result of the campaign against the integration of Daejeon and Chungnam education administration, for which I was the first among those who declared their candidacy for Daejeon Superintendent of Education on January 12 to launch a citizen signature drive. Within just one week, more than about 1,000 members of the Daejeon education community and other citizens participated, and within one month, the campaign produced explosive growth, reaching nearly 3,000 signatures opposing education integration."
Preliminary candidate Oh stressed that the reason he launched the signature campaign opposing the integration of city and provincial education administrations was that "education is not merely one department of administration or a policy instrument for pursuing efficiency, but a value directly protected by the Constitution, and a promise that our society must unfailingly keep to our children."
He went on to criticize that "this grave issue of integrating education administration was being pushed forward under the lead of certain political forces, without sufficient collection of opinions from Daejeon citizens, Chungnam residents, and people on the front lines of education, and without any social consensus, which had driven the opposition of Daejeon’s education community to a boiling point."
He further argued, "Although the integration of Chungnam and education administration, from which parents and Daejeon citizens, the true stakeholders in education, were excluded, has been put on hold this time, if integration had been decided, the damage would inevitably have been borne entirely by the children. Therefore, the special act should be scrapped, not postponed."
Preliminary candidate Oh also stated, "Education has grown not through the speed of integration, but within the pace of autonomy and deliberation," and added, "In education, local responsibility is more important than broad administrative efficiency, and the diversity of each and every child must be respected more than uniform standards," once again calling for complete repeal rather than mere postponement of the special act.
He further asserted, "Although handling of the special act on the integration of education administration, a critical matter involving the very existence of educational autonomy and the educational rights of future generations, has been put on hold under pressure from public opinion, Daejeon’s education community and other Daejeon citizens who firmly oppose education integration must keep watch so that no further politically engineered push can be attempted."
Meanwhile, on January 12, preliminary candidate for Daejeon Superintendent of Education Oh Seokjin launched a signature campaign opposing integration, arguing that "it is a fundamentally unconstitutional act that disregards the autonomy and expertise of education administration, educational self-governance, and the particular characteristics of local education as stipulated in Article 31 of the Constitution," and that "the fact that Daejeon and Chungnam are fundamentally different in their educational conditions and challenges is precisely the reason why we have no choice but to oppose the integration of education administration."
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