[LETTERS to the editor]Change myopic school policy

The Education Ministry will soon have a new policy for special-purpose high schools, including foreign language high schools. Education authorities have been expressing the view that special-purpose schools are the cause of the flourishing private education sector and declining public sector. The special-purpose schools must be shut down or transformed.
Students have the right to choose their preferred type of education and the school they want to attend. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”
Most states allow various types of public and private schools, giving their people the freedom to choose.
A certain number of schools are needed to enable the people to exercise their right of choice. Without it, the UN declaration is just a pie in the sky. The global trend is to establish more schools and to close down unpopular schools. The government has to come up with a better special-purpose high school policy.
Kwon Dae-bong, professor of education, Korea University