Gwangju Office of Education to Fully Prepay Local Education Bonds Early... "To Invest in Educational Policy Projects"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Gwan-woo] The Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education plans to fully repay the local education bonds within this year.

According to the Office of Education on the 17th, the first supplementary budget for 2021, which includes the early repayment of all local bonds issued in 2015-2016 for new and expanded schools and educational environment improvements, was confirmed at the plenary session of the 297th City Council temporary meeting on the 14th.

The Office of Education originally planned to repay the local education bonds amounting to 55.6 billion KRW gradually by 2031, but by advancing the repayment period by 10 years, it will achieve 'debt zero' and save a total of 5.6 billion KRW in interest costs.

This supplementary budget was organized at 2.4192 trillion KRW, an increase of 185.1 billion KRW (8.3%) compared to the original budget of 2.2341 trillion KRW. The Office of Education explained that the supplementary budget focused on restoring daily school life and revitalizing the stagnant local economy.

The major projects include ▲ Establishing a school safety net with 9.1 billion KRW ▲ Creating a foundation for future education with 6.0 billion KRW ▲ Strengthening educational welfare with 11.1 billion KRW ▲ Creating a safe and pleasant educational environment with 72.4 billion KRW ▲ Repayment of local education bonds with 54.2 billion KRW ▲ Establishing an education finance stabilization fund with 20.6 billion KRW.

Superintendent Jang Hwi-guk said, “This early repayment of local education bonds is the result of efforts for efficient financial management, and the saved budget will be invested in educational policy projects for students, such as strengthening future education.”

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