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Teachers report 'extremely high' anxiety over field trip accident liability

Published: 22 Apr. 2026, 07:00

High school students take a statewide mock exam at a school in eastern Seoul in March 2025. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

As easily as a school field trip can go awry for teachers, schools are opting not to hold them at all in an effort to eradicate any possibility of criminal charges filed by worrisome parents over the safety of their students.

The number of academic field trips has significantly diminished following a series of recent rulings holding individual teachers criminally liable for accidents during school excursions, a recent survey found on Tuesday.

In the survey, 53.4 percent of respondents answered that their schools ran overnight field trips when asked about what type of field trips programs their schools ran over the past year.

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union conducted the online survey among 789 incumbent school teachers who serve as union representatives at their schools between March 23 and 30.

Another 25.9 percent replied that their schools had only single-day trips, while 10.8 percent answered that explicit field trips were not offered, but extracurricular activities held on school grounds were. Roughly seven percent said their schools suspended all forms of field trips or other on-campus outings.

Teachers increasingly view field trips not as educational activities but as "high-risk, high-burden tasks,” according to the survey.

In one case that occurred during November of last year, an elementary school student on a field trip in Sokcho, Gangwon, was struck and killed by a vehicle in a parking lot. The homeroom teacher, who was in charge at the scene, later received a suspended sentence of six-month imprisonment without labor on charges of professional negligence.

Another two teachers received suspended imprisonment penalties in a separate case last January where a kindergartener drowned in the ocean during a field trip.

High school students wave on a bus during their field trip in May 2022. [YONHAP]

Such cases are likely to have influenced school teachers' growing sense of anxiety.

A total of 89.6 percent of respondents said they have anxiety about the risk of facing criminal liability in the case an accident occurs during a field trip. Among them, 54.8 percent noted that that anxiety is “extremely high.”

Eighty-four percent of the respondents said the workload for field trip preparations was overwhelming.

School teachers picked immunity from criminal liability as the most urgent and necessary improvement — with 80.9 percent opting for it.

With multiple responses allowed, 30.8 percent called for limiting or suspending overnight trips, 26.6 percent for setting clear safety standards and 25.5 percent for securing dedicated safety personnel. Some 21.9 percent said teachers should be given the choice to participate in the field trips or opt out.

“The fear of facing criminal charges has led teachers to scale back educational activities and stay away from overnight field trips, ultimately depriving students of diverse learning opportunities,” the union said. “Charges of occupational negligence resulting in death or bodily injuries should not be applied to accidents that occur during educational activities.”

The union also urged the government to “reexamine operational standards for overnight field trips — characterized by high risks and heavy administrative burdens — to foster an environment where teachers could focus on education and disciplinary guidance.”

BY JANG GU-SEUL [[email protected]]