The government has decided to hand over the management authority of daycare centers from local governments to local education offices in 2025. This means that the so-called ‘preschools integration’ policy will be fully promoted, which combines the management structures of daycare centers and kindergartens.

In an interview with Yonhap News Agency on Dec 11th, Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho said, “From January 2025, the management systems of kindergartens and daycare centers will be fully integrated into education offices, and “Inter-ministerial consultations have been completed,” he said.

The goal of ‘integration of preschools’ is to manage kindergartens (3-5 years old) and daycare centers (0-5 years old) in one place. So far, the Ministry of Education and the local education offices have been in charge of kindergartens, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare and local governments have been in charge of daycare centers. From 2025, the Ministry of Education (and education offices) will manage both of them in one place.

Before entering elementary school, children attend kindergartens or daycare centers. There are 8,500 kindergartens and 33,000 daycare centers nationwide. However, while kindergartens focus on education, daycare centers focus on childcare. Facility standards and teacher qualifications are also different. There was also a report revealing that the differences in teachers' working hours and salaries can affect the quality of education and childcare.In addition, many parents pointed out that the Ministry of Education should be in charge of overall education as more and more parents want systematic education suitable for the developmental stage of children from infancy and early childhood. This is what developed countries such as the UK, Sweden, and New Zealand do.

The Ministry of Education plans to set up a ‘Preschool Integration Division’ within this year to come up with specific plans. In order to merge kindergartens and a daycare centers, the teacher training systems must also be integrated, which costs money, and it also costs money to redecorate daycare centers to the level of a kindergarteners. Increasing the use time of kindergartens like daycare centers also requires labor and operating costs. In July, the Korean Childcare Policy Research Institute estimated in July that a budget of KRW 15.2 trillion (about USD 13.4 billion) is needed for the ‘preschools integration’.

A high-ranking official from the Ministry of Education said, “Efforts to integrate preschools have been sluggish for decades, but this time, the government has strong determination and a strong sense of crisis that it must come up with measures for social changes such as low birth rates, so we will be able to achieve results.”

Source: “2025년부터 어린이집·유치원 통합한다”(이투데이)