Moon Yong-lin, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University who served as Minister of Education and Superintendent of Education of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, passed away today (76th) at the age of 29.

According to the bereaved family, the deceased passed away from sepsis, which he had suffered from for a long time.

Born in Manchuria in 1947, he received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota in the United States after graduating from the Department of Education and Graduate School at Seoul National University, and has been a professor at Seoul National University since 1989.

Although he came from an academic background, he has actively contributed to policies based on the educational philosophy that students should be helped to realize themselves rather than to develop them into competent human resources for national development based on moral psychology, which is his specialty.

Since the Kim Young-sam government, he has been deeply involved in education reform policies such as education autonomy reform, teacher policy reform, and public education of early childhood education, and was selected as Minister of Education in 2000 during the Kim Dae-jung government.

After retiring as a professor at Seoul National University in August 2012, former Seoul City Superintendent of Education Kwak No-hyun lost his position as superintendent, and he ran for and won the Seoul City Superintendent of Education election held in December of that year.

Even after retiring as the superintendent of education in Seoul, he served as chairman of the board of directors of the Blue Tree Foundation, a school violence prevention organization, chairman of the board of directors of the Korea Teachers' Mutual Aid Association, and chairman of the Korea Council of Youth Organizations.

The bereaved family members include one son and one daughter with his wife, Kang Kang Mo.

Funeral arrangements have been made at St. Mary's Hospital in Seoul.

(Photo=Yonhap News)