Gwangju City’s Expansion Project for Public and National Childcare Centers 'Smooth Sailing'

Plans to Expand to 122 Locations This Year... Continuing Efforts to Reach 153 Locations Next Year

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 1st that the expansion project of public daycare centers to create a "Gwangju good for having and raising children" is progressing smoothly.

According to the four-year plan (2018?2022) for expanding public daycare centers, Gwangju has converted 97 centers into public daycare centers to date. This accounts for 9.4% of all daycare centers, marking an 11.5% increase compared to last year (87 centers).

The proportion of children using public daycare centers also rose by 2.9%, from 10.3% last year to 13.2% this year. Due to the increase in public daycare centers through the expansion project, the utilization rate of public childcare daycare centers increased by 2.5%, from 31.7% last year to 34.2% this year.

Gwangju plans to add 25 more public daycare centers by the end of this year, increasing the total to 122 centers, and aims to continuously expand to 153 public daycare centers next year.

So far, to reduce the financial burden on autonomous districts with low fiscal independence, the city adjusted the subsidy rate for the public daycare expansion budget from the original 25% each from city and district funds to 35% city funds and 15% district funds, and plans to sequentially invest 1.8 billion KRW annually as city incentives.

Various incentives are provided, including support for equipment costs needed for public daycare expansion (up to 50 million KRW), support for improvement costs of shared facilities (up to 50 million KRW) as compensation for loss of rental income when private daycare centers in apartment complexes convert to public, and remodeling costs of 50 million KRW per center when social welfare corporations convert to public daycare centers.

Gwangju expects that with the expansion of these incentives, many social welfare corporation daycare centers requiring functional reinforcement due to aging facilities and private daycare centers in apartment complexes struggling with rental burdens will actively participate in converting to public daycare centers.

Gwak Hyun-mi, Director of the Women's and Family Bureau of the city, said, "When the public daycare expansion project started in 2018, there were 32 public daycare centers, but through various supports, we have increased that number to 97. We will continue to promote 'Making Gwangju good for having and raising children' by providing high-quality childcare services to children who will lead the future generation and creating a childcare environment that parents can trust and rely on."

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