Lee Seon-jae, principal of Ilsung Women’s Middle and High School and a lifelong advocate for women’s education, died Sunday. He was 90.
For more than half a century, Lee devoted himself to providing education for women who had missed out on schooling because of poverty, war or family circumstances.
Born in 1936 in Kaesong, in what is now North Korea, Lee fled to Seoul in 1951 during the Korean War. As a teenager, he was able to continue his studies with help from those around him, an experience he later said shaped his lifelong commitment to helping others who had been denied the chance to learn.
In 1963, he began teaching night classes at Ilsung Higher Civic School, an alternative secondary education program for those who had missed out on formal schooling. He became the school’s principal in 1972.
Lee later developed the school into Yangwon School and then Ilsung Women’s Middle and High School. He also operated Ilsung Sunday School for female workers in industrial areas, including the Guro Industrial Complex.
In 2005, Lee established Yangwon Elementary School, the country’s first primary education institution for adults.
Through his decades at the school, Lee helped generations of women who had grown up under social and economic constraints receive the education they had been denied.
Lee was known as “Korea’s Pestalozzi,” a nickname likening him to Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who advocated education for the poor in the 18th century.
Lee briefly entered politics in 1995, when he was elected to the Seoul Metropolitan Council. He later served as the council’s vice-chair in 1997.
Lee is survived by his sons, Lee Won-jun, a professor at Sejong University, and Lee Hyuk-jun, administrative director at Ilsung Women’s Middle and High School, as well as his daughter, Lee Seung-eun.
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