Yoon Urges Follow-up Measures Immediately After Overseas Trip... Government Reform with Vice Minister Reshuffle This Week

Ten Deputy Minister-Level Personnel Including Ministry of Economy and Finance... "Variables Exist but Expected to Conclude in Mid to Late Stage"
Possibility of Minister of Unification Replacement... Collapsed Yongsan-gu Public Sentiment, Concern of Expansion Across Seoul
Private Education Cost Reduction Measures to Be Announced, Possibility of Additional Message from President Yoon

President Yoon Suk-yeol, having completed his visits to France and Vietnam, is focusing on domestic affairs. The approval rating for President Yoon's governance slightly increased due to the effects of the visits, and he plans to personally oversee personnel changes equivalent to a cabinet reshuffle, including the nomination of the next Chairperson of the Korea Communications Commission and the replacement of ministers and vice ministers, to secure new momentum for state administration. President Yoon has also instructed his aides and related ministries to follow up on the visits.

According to the Presidential Office and government ministries on the 26th, President Yoon will carry out a large-scale vice minister-level personnel reshuffle this week. A Presidential Office official said, "Since there will be a series of transfers within the Presidential Office and ministries, we need to monitor variables until the very end," adding, "Once the schedules such as state administration reports handled by the vice ministers are completed, the reshuffle will be finalized by mid to late week."

President Yoon Suk-yeol rehearsing an English presentation for the International Bureau of Expositions (BIE) General Assembly to promote the 2030 Busan Expo bid at his residence in Paris on the 20th (local time).
[Photo by the Presidential Office]

Inside and outside the Presidential Office, it is anticipated that about half of the vice ministers among the 19 government ministries will be replaced. Personnel changes may include simultaneous replacements of first and second vice ministers in ministries such as the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Unification, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. Notably, prominent candidates have already been mentioned for some ministries like the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. It is also likely that Presidential Office secretary-level officials will be deployed forward. Since they have closely shared President Yoon's governance philosophy, the strategy is to place them at the forefront of each ministry to serve as driving forces for advancing government tasks.

Ministerial appointments are also being discussed. Kwon Young-se, Minister of Unification and a four-term senior member of the People Power Party, has recently expressed his intention to return to the party ahead of the general election in April next year. Initially, the Presidential Office was concerned about influential ministers returning to the National Assembly one after another, but due to the possibility that the public sentiment in Yongsan-gu, which collapsed after the Itaewon tragedy, could spread throughout Seoul, it is known that support for Minister Kwon's return has recently increased.

The nomination of the next Chairperson of the Korea Communications Commission is also expected to be finalized this week. Lee Dong-gwan, Special Advisor for External Cooperation at the Presidential Office, remains a strong candidate, and the Presidential Office judges that opposition parties' attacks against this advisor have lost momentum. It is believed that sufficient explanations regarding the controversies surrounding this advisor have been provided. Typically, the appointment process takes about a month, including a parliamentary confirmation hearing. It is expected that the Chairperson will be nominated within this month and appointed after the expiration of the remaining term of former Chairperson Han Sang-hyuk on July 30.

The Presidential Office plans to accelerate the promotion of government tasks in the second half of the year through a moderate cabinet reshuffle. Since President Yoon has completed most of his major diplomatic schedules, he is expected to focus on domestic issues in the latter half of the year. The instruction to aides regarding follow-up measures after the visits aligns with this context. Over the past weekend, President Yoon also delivered a direct message about a Korean company securing the largest-ever project in Saudi Arabia. A Presidential Office official added, "We plan to continuously review and support Korea-Saudi economic cooperation tasks through export strategy meetings chaired by the president and the Korea-Middle East public-private cooperation committee."

However, the task of calming the concerns of students and parents, which have increased due to President Yoon's directive on 'measures to reduce private education expenses' issued just before the visits, is not easy to resolve. The background of President Yoon's directive was not to lower the difficulty of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) but to enable a 'fair CSAT.' Nevertheless, given that the directive came about 150 days before the CSAT, concerns have arisen even within the public education sector.

The measures to reduce private education expenses to be announced by the Ministry of Education on this day are inevitably a variable. They plan to analyze and disclose killer questions (extremely difficult questions) from the CSAT over the past three years and the June mock exam this year. Since this essentially provides guidelines for this year's CSAT question direction, attention is focused on the government's approach to question-setting techniques to secure an appropriate difficulty level.

Political circles are also paying close attention. At a time when parental support for the government and ruling party is already declining, failure by the government to adjust the difficulty level of this year's CSAT could directly affect voter sentiment in next year's general election. The Ministry of Education's comprehensive measures to reduce private education expenses will be the first since the 'Measures to Reduce Private Education and Normalize Public Education' during the Park Geun-hye administration in 2014, nine years ago.

Meanwhile, according to a public opinion poll commissioned by Media Tribune and released by Realmeter on this day (for detailed information, refer to the National Election Commission website), the positive evaluation of President Yoon's state administration rose by 0.3 percentage points from the previous week to 39.0%. This marks a slight increase for two consecutive weeks following the previous survey (0.4%p↑). Realmeter attributed the approval rating influence to President Yoon's criticism of the CSAT 'killer questions,' the presentation for Busan's bid to host the '2030 Expo' in Paris, France, and the Korea-Vietnam summit meeting.

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