Debate over 3 p.m. dismissal for early elementary students reignites, drawing fierce opposition from teachers

A proposal to push back the school dismissal time for first- and second-grade elementary students from around 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. is back on the table. Proponents say the change would help reduce childcare gaps for dual-income families, but teacher organizations are pushing back, warning that younger students would face greater fatigue and that schools would end up bearing the burden of childcare responsibilities.

The National Education Commission will co-host a policy forum titled "Expanding Education Hours and Strengthening Educational Quality for Lower Elementary Grades" at the National Assembly Library on Thursday, together with the National Assembly Future Research Institute and the Korean Educational Development Institute.

The forum will take up as its main agenda item a proposal to extend class hours for first- and second-graders, delaying their current dismissal time of around 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. No policy decision has been made; the forum marks the start of a public consultation process.

This is not the first time such a proposal has surfaced. In 2018, the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy pursued a similar measure, but it never materialized amid controversy over students' developmental readiness and the burden it would place on schools.

Teacher organizations are again calling for educational outcomes to take priority over simply keeping students at school longer.

The Elementary School Teachers' Labor Union said the question of expanding school hours "should be carefully reviewed not on the basis of how long students stay at school, but on the standard of lessons and rest appropriate to the developmental stage of younger children."

A survey of students also revealed widespread negative sentiment. The union asked first- and second-graders nationwide between Wednesday and Thursday last week whether they would be comfortable staying for sixth and seventh periods and going home at 3 p.m. Some 65.5 percent of respondents said they thought it "would be too much class time and leave them worn out."

Only 3.7 percent said they would be fine with more classroom time. The survey drew 29,136 participants — 12,024 first-graders and 17,112 second-graders from all 17 cities and provinces across the country.

Kang Seok-jo, chairman of the Elementary School Teachers' Labor Union, said first- and second-graders "want to play and spend time with their families after school," adding that the National Education Commission "must weigh heavily the concerns about younger children's developmental characteristics and fatigue in any future discussions."

Some teacher groups have also criticized the very premise of the debate, arguing it is driven by childcare needs rather than educational ones.

The Busan Teachers' Labor Union issued a statement Monday saying that "keeping lower elementary students at school under the guise of a curriculum is no different from state-level child abuse," and that "this discussion did not begin out of an educational need for students' growth, but simply out of an administrative need to fill a childcare gap."

The union added that "the fundamental solution to the childcare gap is to create an environment where parents can raise their children directly," and criticized the government for "shifting responsibility unilaterally onto schools while ignoring the root of the problem, which requires businesses and society to find common ground."

Practical obstacles also loom. Extending regular class hours for first- and second-graders would require a full overhaul of the national curriculum, as well as additional teachers and budget to cover the extra lessons.

Jang Seung-hyeok, a spokesperson for the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations, said a 3 p.m. dismissal policy "would entail a complete restructuring of the curriculum and must be accompanied by large-scale teacher recruitment," and criticized the government for failing to present "any blueprint for how it plans to create the conditions needed for expanded regular school hours while simultaneously proposing cuts to local education finance."

Earlier, the government proposed in August changing the formula for distributing local education finance grants — moving away from an automatic allocation tied to 20.79 percent of domestic tax revenue toward a system that factors in economic growth rates and changes in the school-age population. Education circles have raised concerns that the shift could dampen investment in education, since schools carry fixed operating costs regardless of declining student numbers.

The hagwon industry has also come out against a uniform extension of regular class hours.

The Korea Hagwon Association said Tuesday it "deeply sympathizes with the fact that childcare gaps for dual-income families are a serious social problem," but insisted "the solution must not take the form of uniformly extending regular class hours for all lower elementary students. Schools are spaces for learning, not childcare institutions."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is separately pursuing a community-linked childcare and education initiative this year, independent of any expansion of regular class hours. The ministry said 972,000 elementary school students participated in related care and education programs during this year's summer vacation — 42,000 more than during last year's summer break.