Chuncheon City to Reintroduce Free Weekend Bus Rides for Students Under 18; Ordinance to Be Resubmitted in Second Half of Year

Chuncheon City to Invest 800 Million Won to Guarantee Youth Mobility

Free Weekend Bus Rides for Students Aged 18 and Under

Strengthening Future-Focused Education Beyond Textbooks

Ordinance Revision Underway, to Be Resubmitted to City Council in the Second Half of the Year

Chuncheon City in Gangwon Province is moving forward with a plan to provide free weekend bus rides for students aged 18 and under. The initiative aims to guarantee essential mobility rights for participation in educational and leisure activities, thereby implementing a highly impactful support policy.

Chuncheon City Hall panorama.

The city plans to expand support for educational and leisure activities, including free weekend bus rides, at an annual cost of approximately 800 million won. Through this, Chuncheon intends to broaden opportunities for participation in a variety of activities such as cultural, sports, reading, and career exploration, and to enhance educational accessibility across the region.

This policy is a revised version of a proposal that was rejected by the city council last year. To improve the initiative, the city conducted a survey with the Chuncheon Office of Education from March 19 to 29, targeting 2,261 elementary, middle, and high school students. The results showed a high level of consensus on the necessity of the policy.

According to the survey, 95.4% of respondents expressed their intention to use the bus if free rides were available on weekends, which is a 22.8 percentage point increase compared to the current usage rate. The purposes of use were education (37.3%), leisure (34.6%), culture (19.5%), and sports (5.5%), indicating high demand for mobility across educational and leisure sectors. The survey also confirmed widespread agreement on the policy’s necessity, with most students responding that support for mobility is needed to participate in educational and leisure activities.

The background of this policy is aligned with Chuncheon’s goal of becoming the “best city for education.” The city explained that, as students’ learning styles have shifted towards one-way online content consumption, there is a growing emphasis on experience-based learning, deep thinking, and questioning skills. As a result, students need to engage in diverse experiences beyond textbook-centered education that are connected to future competencies.

Reflecting the results of this survey, the city plans to prepare a revised ordinance bill to enhance the policy’s effectiveness and resubmit it to the city council in the second half of this year.

A representative from Chuncheon City stated, “We will support our children so they can participate in various educational and leisure activities on weekends without mobility restrictions,” adding, “We will further develop this into a policy that citizens can truly feel in their daily lives.”

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