Controversy over School for Children with Disabilities in South Korea

My wife had mentioned this story to me last week as she watched a video with concern about local opposition against building a school for children with disabilities. This week, Sejong Society's news digest included a story on this. I'm pasting it below verbatim since it's a good summary. In essence,  parents pleading with other local residents to permit officials to build a school for their children with disabilities were shouted and jeered at. Allegedly, residents fear that building such a school would lower their property value. 

While such not-in-my-backyard protests are common occurrences, this one really struck a nerve (or the heart) as it involved children with disabilities. I watched the impassioned speech/presentation of one of the parents. It was heart-wrenching to hear her plead with the audience to permit her child to go to school. She asked if they too don't understand as a parent how important education is. After they started cursing at her, she responded by saying she would take their verbal abuse and beating, but she could never give up on the school. The video ends with parents on their knees (a common gesture of humility in Korea when begging/pleading) receiving more verbal abuse. 

This episode is probably not representative of Korea, which I think has made great strides in raising disability awareness and making their society more handicap accessible. But the episode does lead to some interesting questions about the disability rights movement in Korea?

- What is the history of disability rights in Korea?
- Has it been relatively easy or difficult to frame disability rights issues in the Korean context. 
- How advanced is Korea when it comes to disability access/awareness
- And in the specific episode in Gangseo district, why was there so much opposition against the school and how (a)typical is such a response? Would this have occurred in Kangnam (a much wealthier) district, and if so, what would it imply about the relationship between wealth/status and attitude towards 

 The Sejong Society news digest post is below:


Special Needs Education in South Korea

Andrew Jung

On Sept 13, 2017, South Korea’s Education Minister, Sang-kon Kim announced that 18 new special needs schools will be built over the next five years to accommodate children with disabilities. This is seen as a breakthrough for South Korean students with disabilities and their families as more special needs schools were urged to be built as many regular schools were inadequate in meeting their needs. 

The announcement came amid calls for more special needs schools becoming vocal after a viral video earlier in September showed parents kneeling before the residents in Gangseo District located in western Seoul, begging for a special needs school to be built while some of the residents jeered at them (See the full video here in Korean). The video came from a hearing by education officials on Sept 5, 2017, discussing a potential construction project. The parents of the special needs children wanted a special needs school built while other residents opposed it, pushing for a traditional medicine school. The residents were worried about their real estate value further declining and some accused the parents kneeling for “theatrics.”

According to disability advocates, the incident shows the difficulties of having special needs schools built in various areas in South Korea due to local residents fiercely opposing them and increasing pressure on their elected representatives to intervene. However, the recent incident increased public sympathy and support with over 80,000 people signing a petition for the special needs school to be built. Education Minister Sang-kon Kim in announcing the plan to build the new schools commented “there still seems to be a lot of prejudices and misunderstandings regarding not only disabled people in our society but other social minority groups such as multicultural families and North Korea defectors,” South Korean lawmaker, Seong-yep Yu who chairs the education committee said that providing the appropriate education services should be guaranteed as a human right. 

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Education, there are 174 special needs schools nationwide that serve less than 30 percent of over 89,000 children with physical and mental disabilities. Only 29 of those schools are located in Seoul. Over 2,300 of those students often have to commute more than a hour to those schools. Gangseo District from the video is considered to be has some of the highest numbers of students who need special education, aging from early childhood to their 20’s and has disabilities ranging from physical to intellectual disability.

Disability advocates said that many regular schools lack the resources to assist disabled students, such as physical therapy and counseling. The students can also be susceptible to bullying. According to Eun-ja Lee of Korean Parents’ Network for the People with Disabilities, special needs schools can help those students improve their livelihood and increase their independence by providing individualized vocational training.