By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter



National Assembly Speaker Kim Won-ki, center rear, strikes his gavel as the National Assembly passes a bill on reforming private schools amid protests from opposition party lawmakers at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. / Korea Times


The National Assembly passed a controversial bill on reforming private schools Friday amid fierce objections from opposition Grand National Party lawmakers who tried to block the vote.
The legislature voted 140 to four with 10 abstentions.

The bill enables special committees of parents and teachers to nominate one fourth of the board of directors to improve transparency in school management and prevent abuse of power by school owners. Private schools have been criticized for their unilateral management and closed-door accounting practices.

Private school operators have argued that the bill will deprive them of the traditional functions of a board of directors to manage school budgets and appointment of faculty members. They say school operations will be intervened by hard-line unionized teachers.

The Korea Private School Foundation Association threatened to take the case to the Constitutional Court, saying its member schools close for one day in protest next week.

On the last day of the regular session of the Assembly, ruling and opposition party lawmakers collided head-on over the bill, with lawmakers of the largest opposition Grand National Party blocking its passage.

GNP lawmakers tried to physically block the bill by occupying Assembly Speaker Kim Won-ki’s seat. But ruling Uri Party lawmakers and their aides fenced round the Assembly’s main chamber.

GNP members surrounded the podium in the center of the room amid pushing and yelling. Some angry GNP legislators even threw documents at Speaker Kim.

``Shame on you! You should behave,’’ the angry speaker said repeatedly. ``What on earth are lawmakers doing attempting to block a bill in this absurd manner.’’

Kang Jae-sup, floor leader of the GNP, tendered his resignation to take responsibility for the party’s failure to thwart the passage of the bill.

The GNP, pressured from conservative private school operators, has claimed that the reform plan might seriously harm the independence of school management. They have refused to accept a compromise proposal by the speaker.

Relations between the two parties had already turned sour on Wednesday when the governing party passed a bill concerning sensitive anti-real estate speculation measures at an Assembly sub-panel.

The bill, which is aimed at creating a much heavier tax burden on owners of multiple housing units, was expected to be passed at an Assembly panel Friday. The ruling party, however, decided to deal with the sensitive measures during an extra Assembly session to be convened later this month.

The GNP has opposed the government’s plan to levy heavy taxes on owners of land and houses worth 600 million won ($590,000) or more, claiming the current standard of 900 million won should be maintained.

In the meantime, the ruling party and the progressive Democratic Labor Party (DLP) failed to agree on the non-regular workers bill as the DLP’s strongly holds the position that firms should be required to hire short-term contract workers only under strictly limited conditions.

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