[Opinion] True Education for Children of This Era

*This content was translated by AI.

A single click, initiated at the fingertips gently swiping across a smartphone screen, has become an era that completely upends the daily lives of adolescents.

One touch started out of curiosity can lead to debt, lies, and despair. The '2026 Youth Gambling Problem Forum' held recently in the main auditorium of the National Assembly Library was a venue that faced this chilling reality head-on. Survey results showing an illegal gambling ad exposure rate of 54% and 160,000 adolescents with gambling experience expose this not as individual deviance but as a social crisis.

Even more frightening is the fact that gambling has penetrated even into the daily lives of elementary school students. The depiction in the drama 'True Education' of high school students falling into illegal gambling due to pop-up ads and even resorting to prepaid phones mirrors reality perfectly. As Director General of the Gambling Industry Integrated Supervisory Committee, I have actively worked on prevention, healing, monitoring, and enforcement, but I honestly admit that existing systems alone were insufficient to keep up with evolving illegal gambling sites. This is why the bills related to illegal gambling currently pending in the National Assembly must be passed as soon as possible.

What held my heart the longest at the forum that day was not a number, but a single sentence from a seventeen-year-old adolescent.

"To solve the youth gambling problem, meaningful adolescents must participate directly and create the framework themselves."

Until now, adults have placed children solely as objects of problems under the guise of protection, offering solutions from above. However, children were shouting, "Do not solve our problems without us." When children are limited to being mere objects of protection, their 'agency' to navigate on their own is taken away.

If there are adolescents now who are shaken by the temptation of gambling or struggling alone, I want to convey this clearly: Turn off the screen in your hand immediately and go outside to run a full lap around the playground. After running until your breath reaches your throat, you will feel the emptiness of the fake numbers on the monitor and the preciousness of the real world you stand upon. There is no need to worry alone. Asking for help is not shameful, and adults are always ready to hold your hand.

In the process of finding solutions, the responsibility of media and educational authorities is also immense. It is necessary to newly establish and strictly adhere to 'Gambling Problem Reporting Guidelines' so that news reports do not inadvertently stimulate curiosity or imitation instincts. The education sector must also re-examine the limitations of existing financial and economic education to become a tight safety net that teaches sound financial activities and gambling risk awareness together.

The starting point of true education lies at the fingertips of children looking at smartphone screens. More important than preventing them from pressing dangerous links is cultivating the power to judge for themselves why something is dangerous and to stop. True education begins with believing in children as subjects of problem-solving rather than locking them in darkness, and by listening first to their voices.

Director General of the Gambling Industry Integrated Supervisory Committee under Lee Jin-sik (Prime Minister)

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*This content was translated by AI.