코리아타임즈 Education Minister Fiasco.

[아톰]

Education Minister Fiasco Personnel Management System Needs Overhaul

President Roh’s acceptance Sunday of Education Minister Lee Ki-jun’s resignation just three days after being appointed was unavoidable, if unfortunate. It is beyond our understanding how presidential aides could recommend such a controversial person to such an important portfolio in the first place. Even with new suspicions emerging every few hours, the entire Blue House was busy defending Lee and its selection of him. Ignorance or negligence, Chong Wa Dae needs some moments of deep soul-searching. It was a fiasco in personnel management from the start, as problems with Lee were manifest in more than a few ways. The deputy premier for education quit the chancellery of Seoul National University six months before the end of his guaranteed term for squandering public funds and illegally doubling as an outside director of a chaebol affiliate. How can a person who cannot administer a school properly lead the nation’s educational community? ``We knew he had some defects, but who doesn’t?’’ said Chung Chan-yong, Roh’s chief aide for personnel affairs. Is this incompetence or arrogance? After his appointment was announced, civic groups and news media uncovered a series of suspicions about Lee’s eldest son. Apparently he held dual citizenship but later abandoned his Korean nationality to solve problems related to military service and tax without telling his father; entered a prestigious university via a dubious route; and owns a $1.5-million structure built on his father’s land. ``We didn’t check his son’s problems because only candidates and their spouses matter in this case,’’ Chung said. The secretary thus avoids responsibility, legally but not morally. Roh himself is not free from blame, either. Even amid the barrage of charges concerning Lee’s ethics, Roh tried to protect him. ``He is the right person to reform colleges,’’ the president said. ``College education is an industry,’’ he added later. Roh might have wanted to restructure institutions of higher learning by making them face harsher competition, and thought Lee, a neo-liberal engineering professor, had the ability and willingness to do it. It is not certain whether Lee would have been able to fulfill the task given the chance, but expertise alone cannot make an education minister successful, and he would need to be backed by at least a modicum of reform-mindedness and moral fiber. Acoording to reports, Chong Wa Dae has already begun its search for a new education minister. But people should not harbor too many hopes about the new appointee, as the person will be selected by the same people and process. Roh should first hold his chief of staff, Kim Woo-shik, a close friend of Lee, and other secretaries responsible for both the inefficient system and loose ethical standards. The president’s reported shift from reform and principle to recovery and pragmatism might be worthwhile, but need not lead to the complete renunciation of ideals.

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