Does the Student Human Rights Ordinance Make a Difference for Schools and Students? Evidence from South Korea

The Student Human Rights Ordinance (SHRO) constitutes a major normative reform in South Korean education, aiming to institutionalize students’ dignity and autonomy, yet its practical effects remain contested. Exploiting staggered adoption across six metropolitan and provincial jurisdictions, this study estimates the causal impact of the SHRO using a difference-in-differences design that accounts for treatment heterogeneity. Analyzing administrative panel data and nationwide surveys, we find no evidence that the ordinance improved student outcomes. Instead, SHRO adoption is associated with deteriorations in student well-being, including increased physical and mental health problems, and suggestive declines in academic proficiency among lower-performing high school students. Moreover, reported violations of teachers’ rights increased significantly, indicating reduced institutional efficiency. These unintended effects appear driven by administrative overload, ambiguous implementation, and weakened teacher discretion, highlighting the need for complementary structural reforms to align student rights protection with effective educational practice.