Gyeonggi education chief invokes 'jultak dongsi' in push to tear down school walls

SUWON -- Gyeonggi Superintendent of Education An Min-seok said via social media Wednesday that the "wall-breaking" campaign has only just begun, and vowed to keep moving forward together for the long haul.

An said, "On Wednesday, I stood with a trembling heart in the gymnasium of Wondong Elementary School in Osan. In that gymnasium -- shared by students and residents of the neighborhood where I grew up -- Gyeonggi Province, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education and 31 cities and counties signed their names together under a single agreement. Minister of Education Choi Kyo-jin was there to witness the moment. It takes an entire village to raise a child. Twenty years ago, in Osan, a question suddenly occurred to me: why is there no wall in a child's day, yet walls exist in adults' administration?"

He continued, "There was a rigid line: the crosswalk a child crosses belongs to city hall, while the classroom beyond the school gate belongs to the office of education. A child is never divided, yet the administration is. Ever since I realized that, 'wall-breaking' has become the lifelong question that has consumed me."

He went on to say, "'Jultak dongsi' -- the shell breaks open only when the chick pecks from inside and someone pecks from outside at the very same moment. Osan is the place where the school knocked from within, saying it had no pool, and the town answered from outside. On Wednesday, we watched children there learning survival swimming in that very pool."

An said, "That is also why we held Wednesday's signing ceremony at this school. More than 130,000 residents now use this facility every year. The children's learning space has become the town's living space. When a single facility is shared, both the school and the town thrive. I wanted the mayors and county chiefs to see this scene with their own eyes."

He said, "On Wednesday, city halls and district offices of education, the provincial government and the provincial office of education all struck, at the very same moment, at the wall standing between them. Mayors, county chiefs and superintendents of education signed, and I myself signed all 31 agreements. With each new agreement, a light lit up, one by one, on the map on the screen."

He went on, "To me, those lights looked like traffic signals a child must cross -- green on one side, red on the other. Such mismatches must no longer exist. We pledged to each other and joined forces so that only a 'green light' would shine continuously along the road our children run down toward their future. The screen filled with the bright glow of adults' promises. It was a proud and moving moment, and it made even clearer what my office of education and I must do next."

An said the wall-breaking agreements signed Wednesday commit the parties to five shared tasks: spreading a phone-free culture; expanding RAS (Reading, Arts, Sports) character education; sharing school and community infrastructure and operating wall-breaking liaison officers; doubling the education budget while jointly realizing education autonomy; and cooperating on school-complex facilities under the Gyeonggi Golden Plan (GGP). To carry this out, district offices of education and local governments will each select five specialized tasks tailored to their own local conditions and education issues, and jointly draw up action plans setting out roles, budgets, schedules and performance indicators.

He said, "These agreements were not drawn up to be framed and hung on a wall. Each region may move at its own pace and in its own direction, but we will consistently move forward together in cooperation. Wall-breaking is a path none of us has walked before. The greatest enemy of any challenge is fear. We will not hesitate simply because there is no precedent."

He added, "Starting tomorrow, our wall-breaking liaison officers will knock on the doors of city halls, county offices and councils across Gyeonggi Province. Please open your doors and welcome them. Schools will open their doors as well. However, we will guard our children's safety fence even more firmly. When we break down boundaries, the whole village becomes a school for our children. When we join hands, burdens are halved and consideration is doubled. If we pool our strength together, dreams will come true."