South Korea's education reforms face criticism over school‑violence investigators and student‑record system

South Korea introduced a "school‑violence dedicated investigator" program in 2024 to reduce teachers' workload and improve the fairness of violence investigations. Around 1,000 retired teachers, police and counselling experts were appointed nationwide. Critics say assignments are often based on investigators' availability rather than expertise, leading to uneven quality, short training periods and possible conflicts of interest in small communities.

At the same time, the Korean Teachers' Union has staged a high‑profile protest against the current school‑life record (학생부) system, calling it a "fake record" used for college admissions. An audit of 239 high schools found extensive duplicate entries, and teachers report having to write the equivalent of 32 million characters per year. Union leaders demand a overhaul: removal of mandatory long‑essay sections, a clearer separation of school‑level records, and increased teacher staffing to match the credit‑based system.

Both issues highlight growing concerns that education policies designed to streamline administration are instead adding burdens and compromising fairness for students and educators.