The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education was caught up in the controversy over 'Praise for North Korea' after posting a webtoon on its official social network service (SNS) introducing North Korean children's school life.

The webtoon in question has now been deleted.



On the 26th, on the official Instagram of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, a webtoon titled 'Manga that draws if you send me a story - I envy North Korean friends' was released.

'#Education Office Toon' and '#Envy North Korean friends' were added to the hashtag.




The 'Cartoon Drawn If You Send A Story' section is operated by reporting a story that happened at school, and the Office of Education draws and introduces a cartoon based on the content and gives a prize to the main character of the story.



In the controversial webtoon, it is known that a teacher sent an anecdote about the school life of North Korean children to second graders of elementary school as a story to the provincial office of education, and a company commissioned by the provincial office of education made it into a webtoon.




In the webtoon, the teacher explains that unlike Korea, North Korea does not have lunch, but instead eats a packed lunch or goes home.



When the students heard that North Korean children were going on a picnic, they responded, "I envy North Korea, they go to a picnic."



Children who could not even go to school, let alone picnics due to Corona 19, expressed their “envy” at the appearance of North Korean students who simply went on a picnic.



Then, in North Korea, once a homeroom teacher is selected, it does not change until graduation, so there are scenes where the children raise their hands saying, "Wow, I really want to go to North Korea" and "Raise your hand!"



However, netizens who came across this webtoon criticized it, saying it was 'a webtoon that is no different than praising North Korea'.




As the controversy spread, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education deleted the post about 20 hours after it was published.



An official from the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education said today (29th), "In order to capture the vivid voices of the school site, the review and approval of webtoon content was reduced to a minimum, so it was not enough to thoroughly check the controversial parts." We deleted the webtoon before it spread."



This is a 'news pick'.



(Photo = Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education Instagram capture)