ID :
179221
Mon, 05/02/2011 - 05:32
Auther :

Gov't envisions free preschool education

By Shim Sun-ah
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details, quotes by prime minister in paras 5-6, 8; RECASTS headline)
SEOUL, May 2 (Yonhap) -- The government announced on Monday that it will fully cover preschool expenses for 5-year-olds by 2016 as part of a campaign to help narrow the education gap between poor and wealthy students and to reduce household childcare burdens.
The government said it will introduce next year a common preschool curriculum for 5-year-olds and shoulder most of the cost for households to help more children receive quality early education.



The government will gradually increase its support for all households who send their children to the preschool educational facilities to 300,000 won (US$280) a month by 2016, in effect adding another year to the country's current nine years of free mandatory education. The free, nine-year track does not include kindergarten at this time.
Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik announced this plan and other measures aimed to ensure the quality of early childhood education and ease its heavy burdens on parents in a joint press conference that the ministers of education, welfare and finance also attended.
"There has been a growing social consensus for a greater government role in educating preschoolers," Kim said in a press briefing. "Quality education and care for preschool children is very important for the future of individuals and the state."
Seoul will devise more policies aimed at reducing the childcare burden for people in the future, Kim vowed.
Currently, only children of low-income families receive a state subsidy of 177,000 won a month to defray educational expenses.
The government-developed common curriculum will be used in kindergartens and daycare centers alike, according to the plan. About 400,000 of the nation's 435,000 children who attend these educational facilities and turn 5 next year, or about 91 percent, will benefit from the policy.
Children who are educated at home or at high-cost educational facilities, including English language institutes, will not receive the subsidy, but officials expect the expansion of state support will encourage more low- and middle-income parents to send their children to kindergartens or daycare centers.
The government will revise related laws in the second half of this year to give a legal guarantee to the new system, officials said.
The plan comes as the government fights against a declining birthrate. In surveys, many young couples have cited the country's high educational cost as a reason for opting not to have children. Korea's birthrate in 2009 was 1.15 per woman, the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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