The turmoil over a free child care program in Seoul and some other cities and provinces is becoming a reality.
Strategy and Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said last week that the government would sue regional education offices for failing to draw up a budget for this year’s preschool program, called the Nuri Curriculum.
Nuri, one of President Park Geun-hye’s key election pledges during her 2002 presidential campaign, envisions offering financial coverage to kindergartens and day care tuition fees to all children aged 3-5.
Superintendents of six education offices reacted angrily to Choi’s attack, accusing the central government of unfairly forcing them to shoulder the expenses for the Nuri program. Both sides deserve criticism for being extremely irresponsible at a time when confusion over the child care program is at hand.
At the heart of the standoff between the central government and the education offices is whether local governments could finance the Nuri program with education grants handed from the central government.
The central government says education offices are affluent enough to draw up the budget thanks to the grants. In sharp contrast, the education superintendents claim the increased education grants are not even enough to cover the increased payroll for education workers.
Things seem most serious in Gyeonggi Province, where its municipal assembly failed to reach an agreement on the Nuri program by the end of December and began the new fiscal year with a provisional budget.
Education offices in Seoul, Gwangju and South Jeolla Province did not draw up any budget for the preschool program. So chances are high that kindergartens and day care centers there might shut down one after another unless a compromise is reached soon. Circumstances may require parents to shoulder the expenses for the child care program.
The lion’s share of the blame for all this turmoil should go to President Park and her ruling camp, which failed to deal with the issue actively despite her promise to expand the free child care program. Nor can the opposition deny accusations that its moves are intended to highlight the accountability of the ruling camp ahead of the April general elections.
Parents and children will suffer the most from the imminent child care turmoil ― which is why this escalating game of chicken should be stopped immediately.
What is needed most is for municipal governments and education offices to act first so that the imminent debacle can be avoided. The central government, for its part, should negotiate a fundamental budget solution for the Nuri Curriculum.