Seoul Education Office Budget Cut by 568.8 Billion Won... Cho Hee-yeon "88 Projects Affected... Regret"

City Council Cuts 88 Budgets Including School Basic Expenses
Cho Hee-yeon "Concerns Over Inability to Meet Education Community Needs"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Byung-don] Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, expressed regret over the 568.8 billion KRW budget cut for next year’s Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, stating that it has made the operation of various projects, including digital transformation, difficult.

On the 19th, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education issued a statement regarding the passage of the next year’s main budget through the Seoul City Council plenary session with cuts, expressing "regret."

Earlier, on the 16th, the Seoul City Council held a plenary session and finalized the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s budget for next year at 12.3227 trillion KRW, which is 568.8 billion KRW less than the original proposal of 12.8915 trillion KRW. The City Council’s Education Committee had cut 568.8 billion KRW on the 29th of last month, including the budget for distributing educational smart devices and installing electronic blackboards.

In response, the Office of Education claimed, "The reasons for the cuts are unclear, yet 568.8 billion KRW was cut," adding, "As a result, 58 projects disappeared from the budget, and 30 projects were reduced without any standards." The Office expects that the budget cuts will hinder the implementation of 88 projects.

Regarding the 182.9 billion KRW cut in basic school operating expenses, the Office stated, "Although the budget was prepared including public utility fees and inflation increases (82.4 billion KRW), it was entirely cut, putting schools in difficulty," and expressed concern that "only public schools were cut, raising worries about imbalance between public and private school operating expenses." Due to the budget cuts, the basic operating expenses distributed to 1,281 schools in the district are expected to decrease by 70 million KRW per school compared to the previous year.

The 200 million KRW budget for suicide prevention education was also eliminated. The Office expressed concern, saying, "Support for suicide prevention and life-respecting education in schools has become difficult, and it has become challenging to carry out awareness improvement projects targeting students, teachers, and parents."

The Green Smart Future School project (6.3 billion KRW) and the school asbestos management project (750 million KRW) also faced budget cuts, which are expected to cause disruptions. The entire 2.514 trillion KRW budget for "digital transformation of education," including 150.9 billion KRW for electronic blackboard distribution and 92.3 billion KRW for educational tablet PC 'Dibut' distribution, was cut. The Office explained, "This has slowed down Seoul education’s steps to prepare for the AI era."

Additionally, various welfare budgets for out-of-school students (850 million KRW) and educationally vulnerable groups (400 million KRW) were heavily cut. The budget for the Superintendent Cho’s flagship project, the Innovation Education District (16.5 billion KRW), as well as labor rights, student rights, and sexual rights (750 million KRW), were also eliminated. The entire budget for Deobureukiwoom (public-type) kindergartens (2 billion KRW), 8.7 billion KRW cut from the 'Classroom We Dream Of' project, and massive cuts totaling 7.9 billion KRW across 21 school autonomous project contest initiatives were also included.

Superintendent Cho expressed regret over the budget cuts, saying, "It is unfortunate that the result does not meet the demands of the educational community," and urged, "The City Council, with its interest and affection for Seoul education shown so far, should listen to the concerns of parents and citizens."

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