Gangwon Provincial Office of Education Superintendent Kang Sam-young meets with senior headquarters officials. [Yonhap]
Gangwon Provincial Office of Education Superintendent Kang Sam-young meets with senior headquarters officials. [Yonhap]

Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Superintendent of Education Kang Sam-young on Monday issued a special directive declaring that integrity cannot be guaranteed through one-off events, and ordered that corruption-prone areas be reported directly to the superintendent at any time. He also said incentives would be provided to civil servants who contribute to integrity efforts.

"Integrity is a basic principle that every public official must uphold in their own position," Kang said. "Particular caution is needed to ensure that personal relationships or familiarity with outside contractors or stakeholders do not influence official judgment, and any private solicitation or improper request must be firmly refused."

The Gangwon Provincial Office of Education said Monday it would move forward in earnest with an integrity policy designed to produce substantive change and results, in line with the superintendent's directive.

The directive was issued to secure accountability and momentum across individual departments — in the absence of a dedicated integrity unit — and to establish a system in which the superintendent directly monitors progress, with the aim of raising the office's overall integrity rating.

The office will first put in place a concrete reward system for civil servants who demonstrate exemplary integrity.

It plans to establish a regulatory basis for providing meaningful incentives to staff who contribute to improving corruption-prone areas and raising the overall integrity rating, as well as those who actively advance anti-corruption initiatives.

A direct-reporting system for corruption-prone areas will also be introduced, under which the inspector general reports key improvement tasks and field monitoring results directly to the superintendent. The office plans to conduct ongoing checks on specific progress under that structure.

In addition, the office will foster a culture of integrity centered on everyday practice. It intends to move away from large-scale, one-off integrity events and instead identify and pursue integrity measures that each department can apply in the course of actual work.

Amid lingering public distrust of local government in the region, many local authorities and public institutions have tended to focus their efforts on events such as "integrity education" sessions and "integrity campaigns."

Kang's special directive amounts to both a statement of intent and a warning — an effort to correct the mindset of some wayward civil servants and restore legal accountability in a local public sector that has grown complacent, before any deeper probe into misconduct and irregularities begins.


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