The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union surveyed 789 branch heads nationwide. Schools that said they had done overnight field experience learning within the last 1 year were 53.4%. This means only about half went on a school trip or training camp. Teachers were very worried that if a safety accident happened, they could face criminal responsibility. 89.6% said they felt this anxiety. 84.0% also said the administrative work in the preparation process was a burden. Teachers said the most necessary improvement was stronger exemption from criminal responsibility. Some also said overnight experience learning should be limited or stopped. The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union argued that if responsibility is pushed onto individual teachers, educational activities decrease and students' learning opportunities also decrease.
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Only half go on school trips. Before the numbers, you need to see the structure
When you first see this news, it is easy to read it as just 'These days schools go on fewer school trips'. But if you look at only one number, you miss the key point. In a recent survey, the rate of schools running overnight field experience learning was 53.4%, schools running only non-overnight programs were 25.9%, and schools focused on on-campus experiences were 10.8%. If you look at these numbers together, this is closer to a sign that the way schools run trips itself has become too hard, rather than just a simple change in preference.
Why has it become too hard? Because now a school trip is both 'an event where teachers go do educational activities with students' and at the same time 'a safety task where people immediately ask who is responsible if an accident happens'. In the field especially, the problem is that this responsibility feels heavier on the individual homeroom teacher or supervising teacher than on the whole school system.
If you understand this structure, the numbers that come later become much clearer. The 53.4% overnight operation rate, 89.6% anxiety about criminal responsibility, and 84.0% burden from administrative work are not separate statistics. They should be read as the result of educational activity, safety management, and legal responsibility piling onto one person.
The core reason for fewer school trips is not 'because students do not like traveling' but 'a structure where responsibility is concentrated on individual teachers'.
If you understand this, you can see why the rulings, manuals, and exemption debate later all move together as one set.
School operating methods in the last 1 year, looking only at the confirmed shares
How did fear of teacher responsibility grow?
If you look at this flow in time order, you can understand that teachers' anxiety did not appear suddenly.
Step 1: In the past, it was not always seen as the teacher's fault
In the past, there were cases where courts did not recognize teacher negligence even when an accident happened during field experience learning. In other words, it does not mean teachers always had heavy criminal responsibility. If you know this, you can understand that the fear now is not 'it was always like this before' but a recently stricter atmosphere.
Step 2: The 2014 Sewol ferry disaster became a major turning point
After the Sewol ferry disaster, school trips and experience learning came to be seen not only as school events but also as high-risk safety management targets. Across the country, school trips were stopped or reviewed again, and a stricter atmosphere formed around group movement outside school itself.
Step 3: Safety guidelines became tighter, but responsibility also became clearer
Things like pre-inspections, safety education, checklists, safety staff placement, and reporting systems were strengthened. The original purpose was to improve safety, but when an accident happened, an environment also formed where people looked more closely at what was done and what was not done.
Step 4: Recent guilty rulings made the fear feel real
Recently, reports came out about cases where supervising teachers were found guilty of occupational negligent homicide in connection with student death accidents, and among teachers, criminal responsibility came to be accepted not as an abstract possibility but as a real risk. The important point here is not simply the possibility of punishment, but that the standard for how far a teacher's duty of care goes is unclear.
Step 5: The result is the reduction of school trips
More schools have changed overnight trips into one-day trips, replaced them with on-campus experiences, or canceled them completely. So the change now is not just that travel culture has changed, but should be read as the result of legal, administrative, and safety systems putting pressure on educational activities.
Before and after the Sewol ferry disaster, the nature of school trips changed
| Category | Before the Sewol ferry disaster | After the Sewol ferry disaster |
|---|---|---|
| Basic view | Educational event and school culture | Educational activity + high-intensity safety management work |
| How it was run | Large group travel was relatively common | Small-scale and theme-based formats, and one-day replacements, increased |
| Preparation process | Relatively simple | Pre-inspections, checklists, and reporting procedures were greatly strengthened |
| Responsibility judgment | Even if an accident happened, teacher negligence was not always recognized | The atmosphere of closely examining how much duty of care was carried out became stronger |
| What it felt like in the field | The educational meaning came first | Worries about safety accidents and legal responsibility come to mind first |
How much work do teachers actually have to take on?
| Stage | Main work handled by teachers | Why the burden gets bigger |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation stage | Writing the plan, choosing places, informing guardians, checking students' health and behavior notes, advance site visit, safety education | There is a lot of administrative work outside class, and if an accident happens, people first ask, 'Did they check the risks in advance?' |
| Contract and inspection stage | Checking vehicles, lodging, routes, and emergency equipment, checking insurance and contact system | Officially, school and administration office work are mixed in too, but at the site, people end up asking whether the teacher checked it |
| On-site operation stage | Leading student movement, teaching safety rules, checking attendance, responding to sudden situations, reporting to guardians and school | One teacher has to watch many students at the same time, so perfect control is actually hard |
| Afterward stage | Reporting the accident details, responding to complaints, organizing explanation materials | If a problem happens, legal and administrative burden stays for a long time even after educational activities end |
When you look at the numbers, it becomes clearer why teachers feel more intimidated
If school trips decrease, what will students lose?
| Area | What classroom lessons do well | What field trip learning gives |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding knowledge | The teacher can explain and organize it in a clear way | It helps students understand historic sites, nature, and industrial places in their real size and atmosphere |
| Sense of place | Indirect experience is possible through photos and videos | It helps them learn the route, sense of distance, sounds, and atmosphere of that place with their whole body |
| Social skills | Cooperative activities in the classroom are possible | It gives a long shared community experience of moving, waiting, and adjusting together with peers |
| Life skills | Rules can be explained | In an unfamiliar place, students really learn how to be on time, follow safety rules, and handle problems |
| Strength of memory | It is easy for it to remain as knowledge for tests | It creates lasting learning memories by combining place, body, and relationships |
The answer is not one exemption, but a design that shares responsibility
| Main party | Main role they should take | Why it is divided this way |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | Planning educational activities, guiding student life, running field learning | That is because a teacher's expertise is in education, not in all professional safety work like vehicle maintenance or checking lodging facilities |
| School · Office of Education | Risk assessment standards, manual support, contract and administrative support, legal support, emergency response system | For sustainable operation, the organization must support the institutional and legal responsibilities that are too hard for one person to handle |
| External specialists | Safety staff, assistant guides, on-site inspection support | On-site safety needs different expertise from educational activities, so there should be a division of work to help prevent accidents and share responsibility |
So this news should be read as a 'failure of the responsibility structure' rather than a 'reduction in school trips'
If you look up to here, the main point of this news is not 'students go on fewer trips'. More exactly, it is saying that the responsibility-sharing structure needed to keep school trips going has not been built enough yet. This is exactly why the discussion about teacher exemption keeps coming up.
Another important point is that it does not end just by strengthening exemption. Even if the law is changed, if the standard for duty of care is unclear on site, support staff are lacking, and the administrative burden stays the same, schools are very likely to keep shrinking back. So the real solution is closer to 'exemption + clear standards + support staff + stronger organizational responsibility' going together.
So when you read similar news later, you can look at it like this. Do not only look at 'whether to go on the school trip or not'. Also check who is responsible for what, and whether that responsibility is spread through the system instead of being put on one person. If this standard is clear, you can understand much better why some schools cancel, why some offices of education add support staff, and why teacher groups react strongly even to one court ruling.
The question is not 'Are school trips necessary?' but 'Is there a responsibility structure that makes safety and education possible at the same time?'
In related news from now on, do not look only at the exemption clause. Check whether safety standards, support staff, and the role of the office of education are mentioned together.
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