Private kindergarten owners defy gov't Edufine enforcement
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A Korea Kindergarten Association (KKA) official hands over documents to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education staff, appealing the education office's decision to revoke the organization's license at KKA's building in Yongsan, Seoul, April. / Korea Times photo by Seo Jae-hoon
By Kim Jae-heun
Some 160 private kindergarten owners have filed an administrative suit, requesting the cancellation of the government measure that forced them to adopt a state-run accounting system.
This move is seen as a counterattack on the government by the private preschool owners, who reluctantly adopted the system earlier this year amid growing public criticism of embezzlement scandals. The owners are taking collective action against multiple government policies.
According to the Ministry of Education, the Seoul Administrative Court and Rep. Park Yong-jin of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, Sunday, 167 kindergarten owners collectively filed the suit, May 24, against Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae asking for the court to rule against the imposition of the use of Edufine, the accounting system.
Those owners are mostly members of the Korea Kindergarten Association (KKA), the license of which was revoked in April following a series of collective actions that inconvenienced parents and caused public criticism.
They claimed the enforcement of Edufine was against the Constitution and laws protecting property rights of private institutions.
“Once the government's subsidy and the tuition fees are paid to a private kindergarten, the money belongs to the owner of the institution,” they claimed in the complaint. “Kindergarten owners have the right to choose an accounting system on their own, but the state forcing them to use Edufine and monitoring their use of money limits property rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”
The plaintiffs' legal representative is Bak Se-gyu, a former legal advisor of the KKA and current lawyer of Lee Deok-sun, the former chairman of the kindergarten association who is being tried for his alleged misappropriation of tuition money at a kindergarten he owns.
The issue of introducing Edufine at private kindergartens started last October when it was found many preschool owners misused tuition fees and government subsidies for personal use including the purchase of luxury goods.
The education ministry decided to make it mandatory for large private kindergartens with more than 200 students to implement the state-run accounting system from the spring semester and smaller ones by 2020 to improve their transparency.
Opposing it, the KKA members threatened to shut down their institutions, causing chaos among parents. But only a handful of them actually did so amid huge public criticism. Retracting the strike plan, almost all KKA members also adopted Edufine.
But the education authorities revoked the KKA's license for causing inconvenience to parents and a stir to society.
As public attention on the issue has faded away, the private kindergartens have come together to sue the ministry as a group.
If the government loses the suit, its plan to enforce the state-run accounting system on private kindergartens will fail. Moreover, kindergarten owners may file additional lawsuits to prevent the government's plans to more strictly monitor their management.
Rep. Park said he believes the kindergarten owners aim to hold back the passage of three bills the lawmaker proposed last year to secure private preschools' transparency in management. The bills are being fast-tracked at the National Assembly now.