Seon Yi-Kim 201322025

Argumentative Essay
Vincent Gilhooley
2016.12.22
Unwise Choice: Installation of Surveillance Cameras
Despite the presence of surveillance cameras, there have been severe
physical child abuse cases in day care centers. Shocking footage of a teacher
striking a four-year old girl at a daycare center in Incheon was caught on the
camera in Incheon and it went viral. (Lee, 2015) From this incident, the number
of concerns over child abuse among parents increased as there are many
working married couples, who leave their children to day care centers all day
long. As a result of this case, the government unveiled its plan to require all
nursery school to install the surveillance devices. (2015, Yoon) However, the
installation of cameras brings rather negative effects. Forcing installation of
surveillance cameras results in serious effects: infringing teachers rights,
blocking true education, and ultimately obstructing improvement in child care
environment.
Installing closed circuit cameras in day care centers raises problems of
impinging upon privacy and abusing human rights of both teachers and children.
There are a few teachers who are involved in abuse cases; however, those few
do not undermine the many teachers, who are responsible and work really hard
with a deep commitment to children. By monitoring teachers through strict
usage of the camera surveillance, they are regarded as potential criminals. This
would be a bad influence on their desire to teach and confidence to take care of
children with love. The use of CCTV in schools is commonplace in the UK but the
decree to the widespread introduction of CCTV technology in schools is mostly
impractical or inappropriate to educational institutions. (Taylor, 2011) Also, in

many cases, legislation provides very little protection to the data subjects,
mostly pupils and teachers, at school. (Taylor, 2011) Teachers will be constantly
distracted by cameras; creating the sense of being spied for every single move
the teachers make. Besides, children would feel uncomfortable with having
surveillance cameras installed; not only in their classrooms, but also in the
corridors and toilets. Plus, competitive teaching styles of some teachers can be
copied by other teachers by watching the records. This invades the teachers
privacy as being exposed through the camera records. The constitutional law
(1987) states that all citizens must not violate the confidentiality of freedom and
private lives of others. The video records can be easily reviewed by anyone if the
owner spreads them. Actual scenes of teachers changing their clothes were
recorded on the cameras, and the police watched it while investigating the child
abuse cases. This can be widely spread through the social network services.
Teachers privacy and behaviors are captured and shown when the investigation
is needed only to prove that they are innocent. In short, surveillance cameras in
day care centers break up privacy, and they impair teachers by naming them as
potential criminals.
Monitoring real-time situations in the day care centers will violate
teachers educational authority and their true education. Every child is the apple
of parents eye. If the cameras are installed at centers, many parents would like
to see how their kids are doing and make sure that their children are safe for
every second of the day. It gives parents a sense of security, but every move of
teachers will be carried with parents unnecessary concerns. Furthermore, some
parents seeking favoritism for their child will complain. This can lead to mutual
disbelief between the parents and teachers. A wave of complaints from parents,
who watch the video, will surge if the teacher is caught deviating from the lesson

or lightly touching children. It will become hard for teachers to control the whole
class when children are noisy or behave badly. Interference of class time takes
valuable learning opportunities which can be carried outside of the class away
from children. Teachers will act passively to avoid any kind of problematic
behaviors. Hope said CCTV use in schools represents an underlying shift in
values, away from exercising social control through enculturation towards system
integration (2009) In addition to that, having cameras at day care centers takes
away the sense of fun and safe environment from children. As a result, making a
comfortable and joyful atmosphere will be impossible as both children and
teachers feel conscious of being watched by somebody else.
Installation of surveillance cameras cannot solve all problems, and
teachers contracts must be revised for better working environment at child care
facilities. Teachers related to child assault must take full responsibility for the
overall result. Structural and environmental problems have surfaced at the
centers; a number of day care teachers are fairly low-paid, and likewise they are
working in poor condition. This complicated problem has accumulated
dissatisfaction among teachers, giving rise to an increase in child abuse cases.
Also the qualification of the teachers needs to be scrutinized before hiring. In
France, an average training period for teachers is 5 years long, and plus another
2 years of teaching practice is required. This kind of strict evaluation will help
eliminate unqualified teachers, and reduce child abuse cases. Overwork and too
much stress of teachers can cause child abuse. Changes at day nurseries are
necessary to improve teachers efficiency. Day care teachers work on average 9
hours of a day. Teachers are carrying an excessive workload, for example, not
only do they take care of children; they have responsibility of distributing food,
and all the clean-up afterwards. In such a situation, it is hard for them to give all

the children enough individual attention. This great deal of pressure will create
more child abuse cases. Instead of installing cameras, employing extra teachers
is needed to take full responsibility of the safety, and looking after all the
children at the centers. Providing a psychological counselling service is another
way to assist teachers to ease their stress and be more motivated to teach and
care about children. To sum up, child abuse cases are accidental, and they are
caused due to harsh work environment for teachers; subsequently, it needs to be
improved by various measures including better treatment for teachers, and a
strict standard of qualification when employing.
In conclusion, installation of surveillance cameras merely provides a
short-term solution to the child abuse cases, and it cannot prevent actual child
abuse cases. The installation creates privacy concerns of teachers and children.
It abuses human rights as all suspicious behaviors of teachers are videotaped by
the surveillance cameras. Since the class can be reviewed by parents, this will
undercut teachers educational authority, and it ultimately breaks true
education. Installation of surveillance cameras, therefore, cannot solely resolve
all the problems. A fundamental solution - strict measures of employing teachers,
and enhanced treatment after hiring - is more desirable. As the use of CCTV and
surveillance cameras in schools requires greater scrutiny and regulation, its
installation simply deters immediate child abuses, but it eventually generates
more serious side effects.

Works Cited
Hope, Andrew. CCTV, school surveillance and social control. British
Educational Research Journal. Vol. 35, Iss. 6 (2009). Online.
Lee, Ji-hye. Child abuse at Korean daycare caught on camera. The Korea
Times 15 January 2015.
Ministry of Government Legislation. Constitution of the Republic of
Korea. Laws on Green Growth, and Economic Investment in Korea. No. 10.
(1987): 45. Chapter 2 Rights and Duties of Citizens. Web. 6 Dec. 2016
Taylor, Emmeline. UK schools, CCTV and the Data Protection Act 1998
Journal Of Education Policy. Vol. 26, Iss. 1 (2011): 1-15. Online.

Yoon, Min-sik. Korea sees CCTV purchases surge amid child abuse
outrage. The Korea Herald 25 Jan 2015.