Jongno-gu Operates 'School Life Safety Guardians' for Kindergartens, Elementary, and High Schools

Responsible for fever checks during school commute and disinfection in classrooms and cafeterias... Providing 'admission preparation funds' to new middle and high school students and operating 'eco-friendly free meals' to fully support public education... Selected 97 projects across 58 schools for special classes, including placement of native English teachers to enhance students' language skills

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Jongno-gu (District Mayor Kim Young-jong) is striving to realize public education trusted by students and parents and to create an education-friendly city for raising children in response to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of this effort, from the 8th of this month until June, ‘School Life Safety Keepers’ have been deployed at 27 educational institutions in the area for four months to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the local community.

The Safety Keeper project, which has been underway since last year, was established to guarantee students’ safe right to learn by providing quarantine personnel within schools and to contribute to the recovery of the stagnant local economy by creating public jobs for vulnerable residents.

The personnel selected this year have been primarily assigned to kindergartens, elementary schools, and high schools where face-to-face classes have expanded in the new semester, in accordance with the ‘2021 Academic and Curriculum Operation Support Plan’ announced by the Ministry of Education on January 28.

They are responsible for temperature checks during school arrival and dismissal times, as well as disinfection duties in classrooms and cafeterias.

To this end, the district conducted a preliminary demand survey for each school earlier this year, recruiting personnel to carry out COVID-19 prevention activities required by the 11 kindergartens, 8 elementary schools, and 8 high schools that wished to participate.

Linked with the local quarantine job project, 27 residents in need of livelihood support, including employment-vulnerable groups and those who experienced job loss or business closure due to COVID-19, were announced as final successful candidates and are currently working up to 6 hours a day depending on each school’s situation.

In addition, Jongno-gu is fully supporting school education in various ways to provide a better educational environment for children and adolescents, who are the future leaders of society.

Starting this year, entrance preparation funds are provided to new middle and high school students, and eco-friendly free meals are operated to ensure all students receive healthy food.

It is also noteworthy that 97 projects across 58 schools were selected and supported for special school classes such as the ‘Prestigious School Development Program,’ ‘Han (韓) Culture Education,’ ‘Future Creative Convergence Education,’ and ‘School Proposal Excellence Program.’

To improve students’ practical language skills, in cooperation with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, native English teachers have been assigned to five middle schools, and an English Experience Center open to students from 13 elementary schools is operated at Changsin Elementary School to ease parents’ burden regarding early English education. Utilizing excellent educational content from Sungkyunkwan University and Sangmyung University, vacation camps are held to help improve foreign language proficiency among elementary and middle school students.

District Mayor Kim Young-jong stated, “We are selecting quarantine personnel and cooperating with the education office to create an educational environment trusted by students and parents and to support public education programs. We will continue to provide generous support so that children and adolescents can freely nurture their dreams and grow healthily despite the COVID-19 crisis.”

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