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| The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education plans to suggest that the government offer subsidies to foreign national kindergarteners as part of efforts to guarantee equal educational opportunities for all children regardless of their nationality. gettyimagesbank |
By Jun Ji-hye
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will ask the Ministry of Education to provide kindergarteners who have foreign nationalities with government subsidies that are currently provided only to children who are Korean citizens.
The office said Monday that it will make the proposal to the government on behalf of a council consisting of the superintendents of regional education offices nationwide, after the council decided on the proposal in its meeting held May 13.
The council calls for revising the relevant rules so that government subsidies can be offered to kindergarteners of foreign nationalities aged three to five.
Currently, children of Korean nationality aged three to five, who attend public kindergartens, are offered up to 130,000 won ($115) in government subsidies per month, while those who attend private kindergartens are offered 330,000 won.
But foreign kindergarteners are excluded from this welfare benefit, which is in contrast to the fact that there are no fees for elementary, middle and high schools here regardless of the students' nationality.
The number of kindergartners of foreign nationality was tallied at 4,211 nationwide, including 667 in Seoul, as of March last year, the Seoul education office said, noting that extending government subsidies to them would require an additional 10.52 billion won ($9.2 million) in the budget annually.
The office said that the decision to make such a proposal came as excluding foreign kindergarteners from the welfare benefit can be discrimination against them.
"We call on the government to take a forward-looking approach in dealing with the issue so that all children can be guaranteed opportunities for education," Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon said.
Regarding the issue, an official from the education ministry said that the government will need to review education guidelines as well as relevant laws comprehensively and cautiously, arguing that elementary, middle and high school are compulsory education but kindergarten is not.
