Busan Office of Education Takes First Step to Restore Integrity by Appointing Citizen Auditors

Busan Metropolitan Office of Education takes the first step toward restoring integrity in 2023.

On the 27th, Busan Office of Education announced that it will appoint citizen auditors who will be active in 2023 to realize an open audit involving citizens and to achieve a transparent Busan education system.

Since 2012, the Office of Education has operated a citizen auditor system composed of external experts as an ‘external corruption control device’ for major projects and corruption-prone areas.

The citizen auditors appointed this year consist of experts in corruption-prone fields, professors, members of civic groups, retired principals and teachers, totaling 30 people including 12 newly appointed and 18 existing citizen auditors.

Throughout the year, they will engage in activities such as ▲participating in various audits of the city education office ▲joint inspections of corruption-prone areas such as school sports teams and after-school programs ▲investigations of school violence and sexual violence cases that require expertise and fairness.

In particular, this year, mentor-mentee pairs will be formed between existing and new citizen auditors for six major corruption-prone areas including school sports teams and after-school program operations, aiming to carry out activities with higher expertise than before.

Busan Office of Education.

Before the full-scale activities of citizen auditors begin in March, Busan Office of Education will hold a ‘Citizen Auditor Appointment Ceremony and Capacity Building Workshop’ at 2 p.m. on the 28th in the International Conference Room of the annex building of the city education office.

Participants will receive education on integrity and basic knowledge for citizen auditors during the workshop and be briefed on the operation plan for citizen auditors this year. They will also have time for field-specific training to enhance expertise and meetings with work managers.

Ha Yun-su, Superintendent of the City Office of Education, said, “The activities of citizen auditors, who are external experts, will enhance the fairness and trustworthiness of our education office’s audits,” and added, “I hope their activities will greatly contribute to improving the integrity of our education office.”

Prior to the workshop on the 28th, the city education office plans to screen a cheering video supporting the bid for the ‘2030 Busan World Expo’ and hold a brief resolution rally after the workshop to boost the atmosphere for attracting the World Expo.

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