Gyeonggi Office of Education Uncovers Over 5,500 Cases of Misconduct in Private Kindergartens Over 6 Years

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education conducted a comprehensive audit of 915 private kindergartens in the province over the past six years and uncovered more than 5,500 cases of various misconduct.

On the 28th, the Gyeonggi Office of Education announced that since October 2015, it has been auditing the overall operations of private kindergartens, including curriculum, accounting, and facilities, to establish transparency and publicness, confirming a total of 5,517 cases of misconduct.

The Gyeonggi Office of Education imposed disciplinary actions on those involved, including 101 severe disciplinary measures and 283 minor disciplinary measures, totaling 384 personnel sanctions, and reported 27 kindergartens with serious violations to investigative agencies.

Major issues by category included cases where founders used funds from tuition fees to cover equipment that should have been prepared before opening, or paid building acquisition taxes due to illegal expansions with tuition fees, indicating frequent misuse of school funds for purposes other than intended.

Numerous violations related to academic operations were also identified, such as breaching regulations that specialized programs should be conducted for no more than one per child per day (one hour), exceeding class capacity limits, and improper operation of the operation committee.

Cases were also uncovered where free meal support funds were used to purchase items unrelated to meals or to pay wages for personnel other than meal service workers.

The provincial office took financial measures to restore 51.1 billion KRW of kindergarten funds that were used for unintended purposes by reimbursing (restoring to kindergarten accounts), refunding (to parents), or recovering (returning subsidies to the education office and local governments).

Among the 49 kindergartens subject to financial corrective actions, 11 have completed refunds and returns, while 38 are in the process of refunding according to their implementation plans.

Meanwhile, 21 kindergartens refused audits and were reported by the Gyeonggi Office of Education, and among them, six kindergartens (two of which are not currently operating) continue to refuse audits.

Ten kindergartens dissatisfied with the audit results have filed lawsuits against the Gyeonggi Office of Education seeking cancellation of the disciplinary actions, and trials are currently underway.

The Gyeonggi Office of Education plans to impose administrative and financial sanctions such as reducing enrollment quotas and excluding support for class operation expenses on kindergartens refusing audits under the 'Early Childhood Education Act,' and will continue audits with a zero-tolerance policy.

Based on the audit results, the Gyeonggi Office of Education has improved a total of 13 systems, including revising guidelines for private kindergarten budget and settlement processing.

Going forward, it plans to strengthen the autonomy and continuous inspection system of private kindergartens by expanding the operation of kindergartens under the Transparent Society Agreement, operating a tuition stabilization inspection team, and providing guidance and inspection of accounting tasks.

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