Rights to Education: Are Rights of the Immigrant Children Being Protected? Examining the Human Rights Status in Korean Context

Background: With a large influx of immigrants, Korea has declared itself as a multicultural, multi-ethnic society embracing cultural diversity. Many policies have been developed for ‘multicultural’ families and children over the past decades. However, Korea’s multicultural policies are criticized for being skewed and selective many of non-Korean nationals are excluded, and their human rights are often compromised in various domains. This study is an attempt to examine the life of immigrant children, specifically in domains of education. We seek to examine the extent to which their education rights are being upheld by laws, policies, and education services, and identify barriers the children and their families experience in accessing and utilizing public school systems.

Method: Research was conducted in two parts. First, a thorough review was conducted examining current policies and programs pertaining to education of the immigrant children. Second, we conducted a focus group interview with social workers and advocates working with the children as well as the immigrant children themselves. A total of five social workers and three children were interviewed over two months in 2021. For analyses, we conducted thematic analyses following six steps provided by Kiger and Varpio (2020).

Results: The literature review revealed that despite a number of laws and policies in place for education rights of multicultural children, the definition of multicultural children often does not include immigrant children making it difficult for the children to access public school systems. A number of decrees has been added allowing the children and families to file applications to enter public schools upon their entry to Korea. However, we identified discrepancies between the law and its interpretation. Results of the FGI analyses revealed that even though immigrant children are allowed to enter the public education system, their actual access is often denied by the schools who have the overall rights to authorize their entry. This is particularly more so among high school aged children as they have experienced delay and refusals in entering the public high schools. In addition, documents required for immigrant children and families to submit to schools and the relative office of education are often unattainable, particularly for refugees and those from developing countries. The FGI analyses also revealed that even for some children who have successfully entered the public schools in Korea, they often drop out as a result of discriminatory, uncaring, culturally insensitive school environment. All of these difficulties turn some children to schools run by NGO’s, Korean-language assistance programs and often leave other children in darkness.

Conclusion: The findings of the study shows that even though there is somewhat of an infrastructure in place to assist the immigrant children’s access to public schools, there are many limitations and gaps from policy and practice. The education system is not designed to meet the education needs of immigrant children, and its strict eligibility criteria is identified as a serious inhibitor of accessing the schools. The overall findings call for more culturally sensitive, cognizant, and respectful education system.