[6.3 Election] Kim Daejung Launches K-Education Special District... Directly Tackling Population Decline

Proposes an Integrated Vision to Address Declining School-Age Population and Regional Extinction

Maximizing Synergy by Combining Gwangju's Infrastructure and Jeonnam's Spatial Resources

Support Declared by 339 Professors and 1,341 Retired Teachers from Jeonnam and Gwangju

Kim Daejung, preliminary candidate for Superintendent of Integrated Education in Gwangju and Jeonnam, has proposed the "Integration of Education Administration in Jeonnam and Gwangju" as a bold move on a super-regional scale. This is an extraordinary measure to address the accelerating decline in the school-age population and the national crisis of regional extinction.

According to Kim's campaign office on April 29, Kim officially announced his pledge to establish a "K-Education Special District" based on four key pillars: comprehensive student life responsibility education, democratic education, talent development education, and lifelong cultural education.

Kim Daejung, prospective candidate for the integrated superintendent of education for Gwangju, Jeonnam

This plan to integrate education administration is being hailed as a powerful momentum that can inject new vitality into the Gwangju and Jeonnam regions, which have been directly impacted by population outflow.

Going beyond simple education policy, his vision aims to fundamentally improve the educational infrastructure to prevent youth from leaving the region and dramatically enhance the conditions for local settlement. Attention is focused on whether this unprecedented super-regional survival strategy can revive regional ecosystems that are on the brink.

The core of the pledge is to create a super-regional educational hub that combines the urban infrastructure of Gwangju with the spatial resources of Jeonnam, thereby preventing redundant investments and maximizing synergy.

In particular, the plan focuses on providing a tailored comprehensive student life responsibility education system to Haenam and Wando, areas experiencing accelerated youth outmigration, in order to defend against regional extinction and overcome the cascading crises faced by local universities. Additionally, from the perspective of balanced national development, he intends to actively promote the relocation of Korea National University of Arts (K-Arts) to the region and to further expand the foundation for lifelong cultural education on a metropolitan scale.

As the election campaign intensifies, support from the education and academic communities is quickly consolidating. Previously, 339 professors and researchers from 23 universities, including Professor Kim Ilcheol of Chonnam National University, officially declared their support, describing Kim as a "proven leader with the leadership to connect education from elementary to lifelong learning and the execution capabilities for future education in the AI era."

Furthermore, 1,341 retired teachers from Jeonnam and local ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) civic alliances have also endorsed Kim's vision.

Kim's camp stated, "We have already demonstrated practical administrative capability during the introduction of the Jeonnam Student Education Allowance in the past," adding, "We will integrate education and administration to restructure the educational ecosystem across Gwangju and Jeonnam, leading the way for education in Korea."

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