Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education Expands Subsidy Support for Public and Private Kindergartens

Announcement of the '2023 Jeonnam Early Childhood Education Basic Plan'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Jun-kyung] Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education held an online briefing session titled ‘Jeonnam Early Childhood Education 2023’ on the 19th for about 600 public and private kindergarten officials in the province and announced the basic plan for early childhood education.

The main contents of ‘Jeonnam Early Childhood Education 2023’ include plans for ▲strengthening play-centered education ▲expanding the foundation of educational environment ▲expanding after-school programs and care classrooms ▲reducing parental financial burden ▲and increasing support for personnel expenses.

Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education held an online briefing session titled 'Jeonnam Early Childhood Education 2023' and announced the basic plan for early childhood education. Photo by Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education

First, to strengthen play-centered education, the plan is to enhance the cooperative network among small kindergartens in Jeonnam by jointly establishing educational plans and operating joint curricula for single-class kindergartens.

Also, by activating the government task of seamless education between kindergarten-elementary school (Yu-Cho) and kindergarten-childcare center (Yu-Bo), they plan to support the holistic development of young children.

To build the foundation of the educational environment, the designation of Happy and Safe Kindergartens (30 locations) and Future-type Kindergartens (20 locations) will be expanded to strengthen ▲early childhood reading education ▲ecological environmental education responding to the climate crisis ▲character and democratic citizenship education, aiming to cultivate future competencies of young children.

After-school programs and morning and evening care classrooms will be expanded to increase satisfaction for both young children and parents. In particular, as a development task, the ‘Support for Early Childhood Language, Psychological, and Emotional Development’ project will promote linked training between the Provincial Office of Education and Education Support Offices to detect developmental delays early and provide treatment support.

Parental financial burden will be reduced and subsidies for teacher personnel expenses will be increased to strengthen the public nature and accountability of kindergartens. The private kindergarten teacher treatment improvement fund will be raised by 60,000 KRW compared to last year (20,000 KRW for personnel expense subsidy, 10,000 KRW for long-term service allowance, 30,000 KRW for meal expenses), supporting up to 870,000 KRW per teacher.

Additionally, a new ‘Tuition Support for Foreign Nationality Young Children’ will provide 150,000 KRW for public kindergartens and 430,000 KRW for private kindergartens, and ‘Childcare Leave Allowance for Private Kindergarten Teachers’ will be paid for up to 12 months.

Furthermore, daily meal expenses for 3-5 year-old children in public and private kindergartens will be increased to 2,300 KRW for public and 2,400 KRW for private kindergartens, aiming to improve the quality of kindergarten meals.

No Myung-sook, Director of Early Childhood and Elementary Education, said, “I appreciate the dedication and passion of early childhood education staff who devote themselves to education under difficult conditions,” and added, “In this time of change, we will join forces in the great transformation of Jeonnam education to support the healthy lives and growth of young children.”

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