Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Announces Regular Teacher Transfers for Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle, and High Schools Effective March 1

115 Kindergarten Students, 4,249 Elementary Students, 2,642 Middle School Students

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education is implementing regular transfers for teachers in kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools.

On the 3rd, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced the regular transfer orders effective March 1 for each of the 11 education support offices. The transfer targets are ▲115 public kindergarten teachers ▲4,249 public elementary school teachers ▲2,642 secondary school teachers (1,485 middle school teachers, 1,157 high school teachers).

The Jungbu Education Support Office, which oversaw the transfer process for kindergarten and elementary school teachers, established transfer principles based on the survey results of last year’s transfers conducted for all teachers and the consensus reached by the heads of the 11 education support offices, and assigned transfer candidates to each education support office through a computerized system.

Kindergarten teacher transfers prioritized applicants to newly established public kindergartens and assigned teachers considering the supply and demand situation of teachers per kindergarten, working conditions, and residential areas.

Elementary school teacher transfers maintained a 10% non-computerized transfer possibility rate, the same as last year, according to the rotation work principle. The rates were set at 20% for education welfare priority support hub schools and small schools (17 classes or fewer), and 50% for autonomous schools (such as innovation schools). This year, a transfer deferral was newly introduced to enhance educational capacity at schools with a high concentration of multicultural students, and an administrative notice was issued to change the regular transfer cycle of Seoul Bukhan Mountain Elementary School to five years.

For middle and high school teacher transfers, transfers of high school teachers (including various schools and special schools) are handled by the headquarters, while inter-office transfers of middle school teachers are managed by the supervising office, Seongdong Gwangjin Education Support Office. Transfers within each education support office are handled by the respective office.

Secondary school teacher transfers were decided based on the rotation work system principle, considering subject-specific supply and demand, working conditions of current and former teachers, personal preferences, commuting distance, and educational experience. Transfers between middle and high schools, requests for subject changes, and placements for teachers wishing to work at special schools, special education support centers, and Wee Centers were assigned applying recommendation and appointment criteria. Considering the age of teachers at each school, younger teachers such as new teachers were assigned to schools with a higher average age to balance the age distribution.

At frontline schools, a ‘New Academic Year Intensive Preparation Period’ is operated with participation from all teachers, including newly transferred teachers. Along with NAIS concurrent processing, each school (or kindergarten) autonomously sets a 3 to 5-day period to prepare for the new academic year through teacher learning community job training, subject meetings, grade (department) meetings, and workshops.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education stated, "We will continue to strive to realize innovative future education that makes everyone happy by ensuring teachers’ job stability through fair and rational teacher transfers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.