A labor-government consultative body has been launched to address the treatment of school arts instructors, a contentious issue at Korean schools. The move has drawn attention to whether the school arts instructor support program, now in its 27th year, is heading for a turning point.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said on the 20th that they had launched the Labor-Government Consultative Body for School Arts Instructors and Community Sports Instructors at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's Seoul branch in Jongno District, Seoul. The body was formed in line with the revised Trade Union Act, which took effect on March 10, to bring substantive improvements to the treatment of school arts instructors and community sports instructors. The revised law, widely known as the "yellow envelope law," centers on strengthening the responsibility of prime contractors toward subcontracted workers and limiting corporate damage claims against striking workers. School arts instructors differ from private-sector workers in that the state is their effective employer. The unions had long called for the government, as their employer, to set up a consultative body, and the panel came together after the government responded.
The ministry and the KCTU also held a meeting at the same venue to mark the launch, attended by First Vice Culture Minister Kim Young-soo. Participants shared plans for how the body will operate and exchanged views on improving working conditions in ways that front-line workers can feel. The body plans to focus its discussions on improving the treatment and working conditions of school arts instructors, building a reasonable compensation system for community sports instructors, and securing budget funding to support personnel in arts education and sports.
Launched in 2000, the school arts instructor support program sends and funds arts instructors at elementary, middle and high schools to promote arts education. From the outset, however, the program was structured as non-regular work offering artists a side job, and that system has remained in place, leaving employment unstable. Wages are shared by the central and local governments. Against that backdrop, central government funding was cut starting in 2024 under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, and the 2025 budget fell 86% from 2023, putting the program's survival in question.
President Lee Jae-myung ordered labor costs restored in January this year, and 18.5 billion won in special grants from local education finances was disbursed in May. But the unions say the structure remains unstable, noting that central government labor cost funding from the ministry's budget stands at zero this year. The community sports instructor system, introduced in 1989, has also drawn complaints over unstable working conditions.
"Children's artistic sensibilities and the public's enjoyment of healthy daily life are thanks to the instructors and coaches who have quietly devoted themselves in education and sports," Kim said. "We will continue to communicate and cooperate with labor to bring substantive improvements to their treatment."
Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young met in August with school arts instructors who were on a hunger strike near the former presidential compound to demand budget funding and more stable working conditions, pledging dialogue through a labor-government consultative body.
"We will do our utmost to find substantive alternatives through close consultation with related agencies, including the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Planning and Budget," Choi said at the time.