학생인권조례 10년, 그 성과와 한계: 소위 ‘학생인권법’ 제정 논의에 부쳐

Abstract

Ten years have passed since the first enactment of the Students’ Rights Ordinance. The Students’ Rights Ordinance (from here on referred to as “Students Rights Ordinance”) has been a ‘hot potato’ in our society since the beginning. However, a total of seven local governments have enacted this ordinance during the last ten years. The Students Rights Ordinance has achieved meaningful results in both administrative and judicial side. First of all, the Students Rights Ordinance institutionalized the establishment of an organization which protects students’ human rights, and helped the successful settling of systematic human rights administration. In addition, through the judicial decisions, it was possible to reaffirm the rights guaranteed to students along with the legitimacy of undertaking the affair and establishing an organization related to Students Rights under the Office of Education. On the other hand, attempts were made to quantify and verify the effect of the Students Rights Ordinance, but no significant results were obtained. Also, other limitations such as the perfunctory performance of students rights administration and the fixation of conflict structure between students rights and teacher rights have emerged after the enactment. Above all, since the Students Rights Ordinance lacks the enforceability, it raised questions about the effectiveness of the enactment. In order to overcome the limitations of the Students Rights Ordinance and to deliver the sustainable results of the enactment, this study proposed three major measures which could be performed by each individual units. First, individual schools should carry out the Students Rights Ordinace in accordance with civil education. Also the system or organization dedicated to students' human rights should be established within schools in order to deal with issues related to students rights. Secondly, in order to strengthen the actual biding force of the Students Rights Ordinace, the Office of Education should ensure the independence of the Advocate Officer of Students’ Human Rights and reinforce its function as an ombudsperson. Lastly, the State should assure students’ human rights education to be systematically implemented within the official curriculum. Also, in order to overcome the limitations of the Students Rights Ordinance, the contents of the Students’ Human Rights Ordinance should be enacted in the form of ‘Students’ Human Rights Act’.