Gijang-gun Strongly Opposes Budget Cuts for 'Survival Swimming Safety Education Support' in Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle, and High Schools

Gijang County Office.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Gijang-gun strongly protested after the budget for survival swimming safety education support for kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools was cut at the 263rd Gijang-gun Council extraordinary session.

Gijang-gun currently supports survival swimming safety education for elementary school students in grades 3 to 5.

The county requested the Gijang-gun Council on the 7th to allocate a related budget in the ‘First Supplementary Budget for This Year’ to expand support to daycare centers, kindergartens, and elementary, middle, and high schools within Gijang-gun in line with the opening of ‘Jeonggwan Aqua Dream Park’ scheduled for May.

They requested KRW 112 million for ‘Daycare Center Survival Swimming Safety Education Support’ and KRW 209.73 million for ‘Kindergarten and Elementary, Middle, and High School Survival Swimming Safety Education Support,’ but at the Gijang-gun Council extraordinary session, the entire budget for ‘Kindergarten and Elementary, Middle, and High School Survival Swimming Safety Education Support’ was cut, except for the daycare center support budget.

‘Jeonggwan Aqua Dream Park’ has a total project cost of KRW 46.2 billion, began full-scale construction in August 2020, and is a facility with one basement floor and two above-ground floors, covering a total floor area of 11,567㎡. It is scheduled for completion in early April and opening in May.

It consists of the largest indoor complex swimming pool in Korea with 3 lanes of 50m and 19 lanes of 25m, along with auxiliary facilities, designed for survival swimming education for children and youth.

Gijang-gun Mayor Oh Gyu-seok said, “Survival swimming safety education is an essential course to prevent and avoid accidents above all else,” and strongly protested, saying, “It is absolutely unacceptable to cut the budget supporting survival swimming safety education for our Gijang children, which is being implemented for the first time nationwide in our Gijang-gun.”

Mayor Oh added, “I will request the convening of an extraordinary session of the Gijang-gun Council in June and submit an emergency supplementary budget to ensure that all children in Gijang-gun can benefit, and secure the survival swimming support budget for kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools.”

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