The Ministry of Education will again separate and operate the dedicated organization for democratic citizenship education that was merged during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.
According to the Ministry of Education and Kim Moon-soo of the Democratic Party of Korea on the National Assembly Education Committee, the ministry recently created a Democratic Citizenship Education Team under the Division for Expanding Educational Welfare Support.
The team is a temporary body that will remain in place through the end of the year and aims to establish and implement a basic plan to strengthen democratic citizenship education. It will invigorate character, constitution, and unification education and support student self-governance as well as youth group and club activities.
It is the first time in a little over three years, since September 2022, that a dedicated organization for democratic citizenship education has been revived within the Ministry of Education. At that time, the ministry combined the Democratic Citizenship Education Division and the Physical Education and Arts Education Support Team to establish the Character, Physical Education, and Arts Education Division.
Teachers' groups and others pushed back, saying that abolishing the Democratic Citizenship Education Division could weaken democratic citizenship education.