Seoul education chief Kwak No-hyun’s alleged involvement in election campaign corruption has sparked a flurry of moves to reform the current system for electing education officials in the nation’s seven largest cities and nine provinces.

A group of lawmakers of the ruling Grand National Party is moving to abolish the present system in which residents directly elect their top education officers. This system was introduced in 2007 to replace a corruption-ridden indirect selection process.

But since the current system is also riddled with problems, the lawmakers are seeking to introduce an appointment system or a running mate formula which requires a mayor or governor candidate to run on a ticket with an education superintendent candidate.

The GNP lawmakers, however, are facing resistance from opposition lawmakers, who argue that repealing the direct election method would “undermine education autonomy and subjugate education to politics.”

The current Local Education Autonomy Act is basically designed to keep politics out of education. It bans persons who have been members of a political party for the last two years from running for education superintendents. Political parties are also banned from recommending candidates.

One problem with this approach is that election campaigning is costly for candidates as they are required to finance their election campaigns on their own. For instance, Kwak spent more than 3.5 billion won in the June 2010 election.

Another problem, which stems from the ban on political parties to nominate candidates, is the mushrooming of independent candidates. This, coupled with high campaign costs, creates incentives for candidates to pursue secret deals, such as the one Kwak allegedly made with one of his contenders in the election. Kwak admitted having given him 200 million won.

Furthermore, the separation of education and politics hinders cooperation between the local government and the education office in a city/province. Under the present law, a city/province government is only allowed to provide financial support to the education office in its jurisdiction without having any authority or responsibility regarding education. This makes a city/province government reluctant to provide support to its education office.

Another problem is low voter turnout. Given the limited scope of the business that a local education office handles ― primary and secondary education ― many voters with no elementary or junior high students simply choose not to go to the poll. As a result, voter turnout is much lower than in elections for local government heads or lawmakers.

These and other problems have made the present election system a high-cost, low-efficiency solution prone to corruption. To tackle this problem, one group of GNP lawmakers is set to propose an appointment system where a mayor or a governor names an educational superintendent with the endorsement of a majority of local council members.

The lawmakers plan to submit a bill to revise the education autonomy act before the Oct. 26 Seoul mayor by-election.

Another group of GNP lawmakers has floated the idea of pairing a mayor or governor candidate with an education chief candidate for joint election campaigning. Minister of Education, Science and Technology Lee Joo-ho expressed support for this running mate proposal, saying it would facilitate cooperation between the local government and the education office.

Lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party, however, are opposed to both plans, saying they run against the spirit of autonomy in education enshrined in the present law. We find this notion delusional since education cannot be separated from politics. This should be clear from the fact that education policy in Korea is set by the education minister, who is appointed by the president, who in turn is nominated by his political party.

Arguing otherwise is denying reality. While political parties are banned from intervening in elections for education chiefs under the present law, they nonetheless provide covert support to candidates representing the values they champion.

Hence, it is necessary to look for ways to integrate educational administration in cities and provinces with non-educational administration of local governments. Local government heads are keenly interested in educational affairs. But currently, they are not responsible for education in their constituencies. If they are made accountable for education, they will mobilize all the resources within their hands to improve the educational standards of their regions because they know this is the surest way to win favor with their constituents.