Pickup sports shown red card as schools park the bus against legal liability

A parent surnamed Kim, whose child is a third grader at an elementary school in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul, has recently been looking into private football academies.

Kim’s child used to enjoy a kickabout with friends on the school pitch during lunch breaks and after school, but the school banned all pickup sports this year, citing responsibility for safety accidents and complaints from parents.

“Children can’t even play properly at school anymore, so each family has to take care of it on their own,” Kim said. “I understand it to some extent, but it is still upsetting.”

It is not just football. School excursions, birthday parties and even sports days with winners and losers have recently been disappearing from schools. As complaints and legal action by parents against schools and teachers become increasingly common, schools are choosing “doing nothing” as a survival strategy.

Experts warn that the equal access to experiences long provided by public education could be eroded.

School excursions halved, sports days without winners

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Education and local education offices to Rep. Chun Ha-ram of the minor opposition Reform Party, 287, or 4.85 percent, of 5,920 elementary schools nationwide, excluding Incheon, banned sports activities such as football and baseball outside regular class hours as of this year.

In Seoul, 101 out of 605 schools, or 16.69 percent, imposed such bans. In Busan, the figure reached 105 out of 303 schools, or 34.65 percent. The main reasons cited were the risk of accidents and noise complaints from nearby residents.

The move to mitigate potential complaints is expanding in a way that even affects how students socialize or experience competitiveness.

Some elementary schools recently sparked controversy after sending letters to parents asking them to refrain from throwing birthday parties after the schools received complaints over ostracism when a child was not invited.

A growing number of schools are also holding sports days without winners amid complaints from parents that their children should not be made to feel inferior. Some schools are skipping award ceremonies altogether out of concern that children who do not receive prizes may feel discouraged.

The decline in school activities outside the classroom is even clearer in the numbers.

Of the 605 elementary schools in Seoul, the number that held one-day field trips fell by nearly half in two years, from 598, or 98.8 percent, in 2023 to 309, or 51.1 percent, last year.

In a survey conducted in March by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), 7.2 percent of 789 local heads nationwide said their schools had effectively suspended all forms of field trips.

Schools grow cautious amid complaints and lawsuits

Behind the domino-like cancellation of school events is the growing normalization of complaints, lawsuits and criminal complaints filed by parents.

“In the past, parents would usually just call to complain, but now it often leads to lawsuits or criminal complaints against teachers and schools,” said a homeroom teacher at a middle school in Seoul.

“If an accident happens during a school excursion, the teacher in charge may end up standing in court. In that reality, wouldn’t people naturally say that not going at all is the rational choice?”

As a result, teachers and schools are becoming increasingly cautious, and the list of banned activities keeps growing.

Many schools are pre-emptively reducing activities even when there have been no complaints or lawsuits. Although decisions on field trips and sports activities are technically left to the discretion of principals, that discretion is increasingly tilting toward not doing anything in a system where all responsibility falls on individual schools.

“Even if we only hear that there was a problem at a nearby school, the atmosphere immediately becomes, ‘Let’s ban it here too,’” said a principal at a middle school in Seoul.

Experience gap could widen divide between families

Experts say that as school activities disappear, the burden of filling the gap will inevitably fall on children and their families.

“If football on the school field is banned, families with the means can send their children to private clubs that cost 100,000 to 200,000 won [$69 to $138] a month, and if school excursions disappear, parents take their children out themselves every weekend,” said an official at an education support office in Seoul. “Children from families that lack the time, money or information will inevitably be excluded from those experiences.”

“In the end, the equality of experience that public education has long guaranteed could be thrown off balance,” the official added.

Teachers and experts say the first step is to change a system that places all legal responsibility on teachers.

In the KTU survey, the top measure cited by teachers as necessary for improvement was strengthening exemptions from criminal liability for teachers, chosen by 80.9 percent of respondents.

The Institute for Democracy, the policy think tank of the ruling Democratic Party, proposed in a report released on Tuesday that the government or education offices take responsibility for lawsuits against teachers. It called for a system under which “the state or education offices automatically assign dedicated legal counsel for civil or criminal disputes that arise during legitimate educational activities.”

But some point out that exempting teachers from liability is only the starting point. They say society must rebuild a consensus that the risks involved in school activities should not be borne solely by schools and teachers, but shared by parents and local communities as well.

Some local education offices are operating “school culture responsibility agreements,” under which students, parents and teachers pledge to share responsibility.

“For schools to restore experiences for children, parents and local communities must return as partners of schools,” said Park Nam-gi, a professor emeritus at Gwangju National University of Education. “Under the current structure, where schools are focused solely on legal defense, it will be difficult to prevent educational activities from shrinking no matter what system is introduced.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY LEE HOO-YEON [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]