The Current Status and Prospective Future of Democratic Civic Education in Korea

Abstract

Democratic civic education has the usefulness for improving stability, integration and efficiency of a political system by promoting democratic culture and helping establish measures to address possible problems to be arisen from the process of reunification and post-reunification society. Nevertheless, it has not yet been systematically offered. The problems of democratic civic education are its inconsistent content, its misuse as a tool for a regime, indifference and lack of awareness among the public and lack of systems for the education. These caused lack of policies and inconsistent and disorganized education, which led to confusion over democratic civic education. In order to take the democratic civic education to the next level, new principles of universality, expertise, voluntary participation and the method of self-directed learning should be established. And the content has to be adjusted or reorganized by reflecting changes in IT, knowledge-based and service societies. It should also include shifted individual identity and citizenship based on horizontal relationship between a state and a civil society or an individual, not on vertical relationship, and operation principles of a society and national identity to supplement the shift. When going in this direction, civic education is expected to contribute to nurturing active citizens able to internalize democratic procedures and norms and put them into action. Institutionalization is needed for successful civic education for democracy. To this end, Democratic Civic Education Support Act and Democratic Civic Education Institute(tentatively named) should be established. There has been a lot of discussions around how to found and operate the Institute, but what is important is to launch a government funded independent agency where check and balance between government, public and private sectors are possible securing political neutrality and enough budget. That is why the Institute should be founded in a similar way as National Human Rights Commission of Korea has been.