Gyeonggi Office Of Education Strongly Urges Robust Measures To Prevent Educational Reverse Discrimination From Administrative Integration

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education has urged the government and the National Assembly to come up with practical measures to ensure that non-administrative-integration areas such as Gyeonggi Province and Incheon are not marginalized in terms of educational autonomy and finances amid recent moves toward ultra-wide-area administrative integration.

According to the provincial office of education on February 10, special acts on administrative integration are currently being proposed for Daejeon–South Chungcheong, Gwangju–South Jeolla, and Daegu–North Gyeongsang, while the roadmap for administrative integration of Busan–South Gyeongsang has been announced and discussions are underway on establishing North Chungcheong as a special self-governing province. Among these, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon are maintaining the status of ordinary local governments, as they are not subject to administrative integration.

Accordingly, once administrative integration is completed in the future, there are concerns that non-administrative-integration areas may be excluded from the expansion of educational finances and the strengthening of educational autonomy due to financial incentives and legal special cases being concentrated in the integrated regions.

In particular, from the perspective of educational finances, several discussions are taking place simultaneously: adjusting the ratio between national taxes and local taxes; reviewing the integration of local education financial grants and local allocation tax; and introducing large-scale financial incentives and a new integrated special education grant for administrative integration areas.

However, such changes could lead to an absolute decrease in local education financial grants, which are linked to national tax revenues. Critics point out that non-administrative-integration areas could be excluded from opportunities to secure additional resources, thereby undermining regional equity in educational finances.

Furthermore, if the ratio of national taxes to local taxes is adjusted to 7 to 3, local education financial grants could decrease by an estimated 3.6 trillion won compared to the current level. This could seriously threaten the financial independence of provincial and metropolitan offices of education and the autonomy of education guaranteed by the Constitution.

Im Taehee, Superintendent of Education of Gyeonggi Province

In response, the provincial office of education proposed several measures to at least guarantee the quality of education in non-administrative-integration areas: establishing financial distribution criteria that reflect actual educational demand; raising the allocation rate of local education financial grants; and creating a new type of grant equivalent to the integrated special education grant.

It also called for a more realistic calculation method for grants that takes into account the high-cost educational structure in Gyeonggi Province, including resolving overcrowded classes and covering the cost of building new schools.

The provincial office of education further noted that expanding special provisions in education-related laws exclusively for administrative integration areas could weaken the equity and effectiveness of the overall educational legal system. It therefore proposed comprehensive amendments to education-related laws such as the Local Education Autonomy Act, the Early Childhood Education Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, so that institutional improvements can be applied universally to all regions.

It also stressed that administrative integration bills should explicitly stipulate win-win cooperation between administrative integration areas and non-integration areas, as well as the prevention of reverse discrimination. In addition, it argued that the enactment of a tentatively titled “Special Act on Improving Educational Environments in Overpopulated Areas” and a “Special Act on Education in the Seoul Metropolitan Area,” aimed at resolving the deterioration of educational conditions caused by overpopulation in the capital region, should be reviewed.

Lim Taehee, Superintendent of Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, said, “The constitutional right of students to education must be guaranteed equally, but this is not the reality in Gyeonggi Province,” adding, “We urge the establishment of effective and robust institutional safeguards at the national level so that the push for administrative integration does not deepen regional educational disparities or lead to reverse discrimination.”

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