The personnel administration for teachers may be different according to school level.
However, Korean teacher policies do not reflect the differences and characteristics of primary
and secondary teachers respectively. As Korean teacher policies mainly focus on secondary
level, the issues and need of primary teacher policies cannot be identified and implemented
properly. Based on this idea, this article aims to identify the issues and tasks of primary
teacher policies. For this, this article analyzed the purposes and characteristics of primary
education from the view of Dewey and Chu Hsi. The purposes and characteristics of
primary education are identified and contrasted between the realization of innate nature and
social development and between basic education for next education level and distinct
education for primary level. Based on this discussion, the issues and tasks of primary
teacher policies are drawn. The issues of primary teacher policies are teacher preparation
policy (certificate, teacher education curriculum, selection of new teacher), teaching support
policy, personnel administration policy (changing career, transferring teachers, evaluation,
in-service education). Tasks of primary teacher policies are suggested as follows: First,
ensuring the liaison between teacher preparation and teacher employment (adopting
professional graduate school of education). Second, clarifying the range of in-service teacher
education and supporting in-service teacher education at school level. Finally, clarifying the
job description of school principal and adopting capacity evaluation for principal