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On Nov. 1, JNU announced that Professor Ko Jeon (former JNU vice president) of JNU Teachers college has been selected as the winner of the "Soseok Thesis Award" from The Korean Educational Administration Society (KEAS) with the title of ‘The Feasibility and Legislative Task of the Nation’s Mandatory Regulations on Educational Autonomy and Efforts to Integrate Local Autonomy under the Decentralization Act.’

KEAS announced that the paper was highly praised for suggesting system improvement and future research tasks and proposing specific legislative tasks by carefully analyzing the validity of the rule in accordance with the constitutional spirit of educational autonomy that has been around for more than 70 years.

In his acceptance speech, Prof. Ko said, “The education autonomy system has been maintained since the Education Act enacted in 1949 in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, which seeks to guarantee the independence, professionalism, and political neutrality of education. However, we are currently in a situation in a dire extremity because we are overwhelmed by the efficiency logic of integrated local autonomy. Therefore, I wanted to raise alarm in the academic and educational circles, which do not even know the existence of this integrated obligation.”

He also added, “I hope that this award serves as an opportunity to share and reflect on the challenges to be solved by raising interest in my thesis. In addition, I hope that the Jeju-do education council system, which is undergoing a sunset system, will be reconsidered in the same context."

Marking its 15th anniversary this year, the Soseok Thesis Award is the only academic award in Korea that represents the nation's educational administration, established under the auspices of the late Dr. Kang Gil-soo (former Prof. of Seoul National University), a first-generation scholar of KEAS.

The award ceremony was held at Chungbuk National University, where the annual general conference of KEAS on Dec. 2.

Prof. Ko has won the second academic award following the "Ilbong Jeong Tae-soo Academic Award" (2017), the Korean Educational Law Association Academic Award. As a leading educational law researcher in Korea, he has written 『Japanese Education Law』 (2019 Excellent Book of the Korean Academy of Sciences) and 『Korean Education Law』. (2022, Park Young-sa)