Chungnam Province "Suspends Private Kindergarten Early Childhood Education Funding... Strengthens Support for Daycare Centers"

[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Chungnam Province will stop supporting private kindergarten tuition fees from next year. Conversely, support for daycare centers will be strengthened through increased budgets.

On the 7th, the province announced that it will no longer provide tuition support for private kindergarten children (ages 3 to 5) starting next year.

As of last year, private kindergarten tuition fees were supported monthly at 157,600 KRW for 15,100 children attending 123 kindergartens.

This amount is the difference between the standard tuition fee of 448,800 KRW announced by the Ministry of Education and the government support amount of 291,280 KRW.

However, since support for private kindergartens is inherently the responsibility of the Office of Education and local bonds have recently increased, worsening the provincial financial situation, the province judged that support would be difficult from next year.

In particular, while the amount of provincial transfers to the Chungnam Office of Education increased 3.8 times from 190 billion KRW in 2001 to 387.7 billion KRW this year, the school-age population (ages 6 to 17) decreased from 310,000 to 240,000 during the same period, leading to an expectation that the Office of Education’s financial situation is relatively stable, which also contributed to the decision to stop support.

Conversely, support for daycare centers will increase from next year. The province plans to increase the daycare support budget from 24 billion KRW this year to 36.6 billion KRW next year, an increase of 12.6 billion KRW.

The increased budget will be used to provide an additional 50,000 KRW per month for necessary expenses for infants and toddlers at daycare centers and to raise the government-supported daycare teacher salary coverage from the current 80% to 100%.

Additionally, the province will fully support the standard childcare fees for daycare centers not covered by government support next year as well.

A provincial official stated, “Although we have supported private kindergarten tuition fees within the budget according to ordinances, considering the recently worsened financial conditions and the need for additional childcare fee support, stopping support was inevitable. The province will do its best to adjust the financial contribution ratio with the Office of Education so that no additional burden falls on parents and to strengthen support for daycare centers.”

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