Korea Employment and Labor Education Institute to train 700 school workers on labor law

The Korea Employment and Labor Education Institute is launching an intensive labor standards training program to protect the labor rights of education civil servants — school workers who handle cooking, childcare and special education support.

The institute announced Tuesday it will run the "2026 Labor Standards Act Understanding Course for Education Civil Servants," targeting workers employed by school districts across the country. Education civil servants are non-civil-servant workers at schools and educational institutions who perform duties including meal preparation and service, childcare, special education student support, and administrative assistance. There are approximately 170,000 such workers nationwide. About 700 of them — selected individually by each school district, including trade union officials — will receive focused training in the second half of this year on labor issues that commonly arise on the job, including working hours, holidays and leave, and wages and severance pay.

The institute said preventive education is needed because labor rights violations and resulting labor disputes involving education civil servants — who handle essential on-site support roles in school operations — continue to occur.

The training is designed to help education civil servants understand the Labor Standards Act and build the capacity to recognize and protect their own rights in the workplace.

The curriculum runs 12 hours in total. Key topics include the current state of school labor-management relations and recent changes, a clause-by-clause explanation of the Labor Standards Act, working hours and holidays and leave, and wages and severance pay. The course also addresses employment contract formation, dismissal and disciplinary action, workplace rules, extended and night and holiday work, flexible working-hour arrangements, methods for calculating average and ordinary wages, and types of retirement benefits — all areas of high practical relevance at schools. Relevant court rulings and detailed application cases are included as well.

To maximize the program's impact, the institute plans to concentrate training in the second half of this year on about 700 education civil servants selected by each school district, including trade union officials. The goal is to spread the course content to individual school sites and raise awareness of education civil servants' labor rights.

Since 2004, the institute has run training programs for education civil servants at school districts nationwide to strengthen labor rights awareness and foster a sound labor-management culture in schools.

Lee Jong-seon, president of the Korea Employment and Labor Education Institute, said the institute "will do its utmost as a specialized public labor education institution to help education civil servants strengthen their capacity to protect their own rights and create a workplace culture where labor is respected."