Calls mounting for scrapping school trips
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Students at Youido Girl’s High School in Seoul pray for the safe return of the missing people from the sunken ferry Sewol, Monday. / Yonhap |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Calls are growing among parents for the scrapping of school field trips following the sinking of the ferry Sewol.
Hundreds of parents posted messages on the website of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, urging the authorities to stop school trips.
The Ministry of Education is considering banning school field trips in the first semester as parents are concerned about the safety of their children on such outings.
Kim Mee-young, 47, a mother of three children, said, “People my age probably remember that they were eager to go on excursions when they were teenagers. Back then, we had few opportunities for family trips because many of us were poor and our parents were struggling to make ends meet,” she said. “But that’s not the case for children these days. For example, our children take many trips to different cities during their summer and winter vacations.”
Kim said that now is the time for the educational authorities to scrap field trips at least until more safety measures are instituted.
“I was pretty much worried last year when my second son, who is now a three-year high school student, went to Jeju Island on a school excursion,” she said.
Rep. Yoo Ki-hong of the New Politics Democratic Alliance, called for the government to come up with more systematic and practical measures to boost safety for school field trips as accidents have increased.
The number of accidents involving field trips at primary and secondary schools across the nation stood at 216 in 2013, 231 in 2012 and 129 in 2011, Yoo said, citing data from the education ministry.
Although many parents share safety concerns about school-led field trips, some parents are opposed to cancelling them altogether.
They say that parents need to refrain from “emotional” reactions to the school trips and see the positive side of such excursions. They say organized field trips are different from family trips, as the former is more educational and therefore students can learn something that they cannot through their family trips.
In the midst of a heated debate between proponents and opponents of school-led outreach programs, some local educational authorities, including the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, directed schools to suspend upcoming school trips.
Many elementary and secondary schools in Seoul cancelled their trips to Jeju Island but some have had difficulties cancelling those trips because of penalties they have to pay for the unilateral cancellation of their contracts with travel agencies.
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