February 10, 2006

You know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
James 3:1

Dear Friends around the world,

A new law regulating private schools has become an issue here, and after teaching in a number of schools and being on boards for a number of Christian schools, Art is aware of how big an endeavor Christian schools are and some of the pluses and minuses involved. Sue graduated from Seung Eui Girls School in Seoul where she became a Christian, like some others who attend Christian schools.

In South Korea the government Uri Party rammed through a law on private school reform in December 2005 when the main opposition Grand National Party members of the National Assembly were not present. The law requires private schools from elementary to university level to elect a quarter of their board of directors from among faculty members and parents, with the aim of producing more transparency in management and lessening corruption among those who control the schools.

Most of these have grown to a good size since they were founded by missionaries. Other schools are led and governed by Protestant elders and pastors without being part of the 360 Protestant, 60 Roman Catholic, and about 60 Buddhist private schools listed by the Ministry of Education as being. owned by religious bodies, which compose 24 percent of the total of 1,974 private schools in the nation.

The smaller Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) and the National Council of Christian Churches in Korea have come out in favor of the law, saying that it will bring transparency and democracy in school management. The PCK, PROK and NCCK are all mission partners of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

A nationwide campaign against the law was started by the Christian Council of Korea, to which a majority of Protestant churches are related, and the Grand National Party. Recently, the Uri Party said that they have agreed to a compromise on the private school law, which will be amended.

The present PCK moderator, the Reverend Young-Ro Ahn, a former chaplain at Speer Girls High School in Kwangju, has been forceful in working to change the new law. Art has served for a number of years with Rev. Ahn on the Honam Christian Schools Foundation, the legal board of directors for eleven mission-founded schools that were the start of modern education in the Cholla Province area some 100 years ago.

These groups say that while there has been considerable corruption among those controlling private schools, the government has been handling the problem well by other means. Teachers belonging to a radical left-leaning labor union have been found in the past to pass on to their students a slanted view of subjects, including recent Korean history. The fact that the government party has suggested the lowering the voting age to 17 shows why this new school law can be a topic of hot debate.

Pray that the good done by schools in Christ’s name will continue and that strict self-evaluation will be done to prevent problems of corruption and mismanagement. One of the schools under the Honam Christian Schools Foundation needs to pay for new buildings by money earned through a sale of land. The sale has been delayed through no fault of their own.

Our last mission connections letter said that the Lighthouse Foundation started by Sue was feeding 40,000 young children in North Korea, but further evaluation has determined the number to refer to special occasions and that 20,000 children regularly receive food.

Representing you for Christ in Korea,

Art and Sue Kinsler

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 249