Incheon Office of Education Allocates Additional 360 Billion KRW in 2nd Supplementary Budget Focused on Recovering Educational Deficits

Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education building exterior

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] The Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education announced on the 20th that it has submitted a second supplementary budget proposal worth 4.6932 trillion KRW to the city council, focusing on recovering educational deficits caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

This amount is 360 billion KRW (8.3%) higher than the first supplementary budget of 4.3332 trillion KRW. It includes an increased ordinary grant of 336 billion KRW following the government’s supplementary budget allocation, as well as 88.3 billion KRW allocated for local education bond repayments.

The Office of Education plans to actively support overcoming students’ learning, psychological, and social deficits caused by the prolonged COVID-19 situation by concentrating 46% of the second supplementary budget, amounting to 166.4 billion KRW, on educational recovery projects.

The budget allocates 49.7 billion KRW for educational deficit recovery projects, including the Incheon Education Recovery Support Fund of 100,000 KRW per student; 5.3 billion KRW for kindergarten after-school class operation expenses, special after-school education activity support, and vocational high school employment competency enhancement projects; and 9.5 billion KRW for quarantine safety net projects such as support for school quarantine personnel.

Additionally, 11.9 billion KRW is included for future education innovation infrastructure projects aimed at smart city Incheon, such as building Green Smart Future Schools, distributing smart devices for digital education, modernizing intelligent science labs, and installing fine dust electronic display boards in schools at all levels.

Seven hundred thirty-one billion KRW is allocated for improving educational conditions, including new construction and expansion of schools, and 25.8 billion KRW will be invested in improving staff housing in island areas.

An official from the Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education stated, "As the education office has taken on the burden of the nursery school Nuri curriculum expenses, a large amount of local education bonds has accumulated. In the spirit of strengthening fiscal soundness in education this year, a large-scale local bond repayment amount has been included in the supplementary budget."

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