The Korea Superintendents Association announced it will boycott a government meeting of provincial and metropolitan education office budget directors, pushing back against the government's proposed overhaul of local education finance grants. The association called on the government to maintain the current rate of 20.79 percent of domestic tax revenue earmarked for local education and to establish a formal consultative body that includes the superintendents.
The association held an emergency press conference at the National Assembly on Tuesday, releasing a joint statement signed by 16 provincial and metropolitan superintendents declaring their "absolute opposition" to the proposed reform of local education finance.
The government's plan would scrap the current formula that allocates a fixed 20.79 percent of domestic tax revenue to local education finance grants, replacing it with a system that adjusts grant levels based on factors such as the nominal growth rate and changes in the school-age population.
The association said the government's proposal would undermine the stability of local education finances and erode the foundation for future education. It noted that even as the school-age population declines, core spending needs — including teacher salaries, school operating costs, and facility safety and maintenance — do not shrink at the same rate.
The association also said demand for new areas of education — including AI and digital learning, personalized instruction, foundational academic support, mental health, and childcare and safety programs — is in fact growing. "To respond stably to future education needs, the current domestic tax linkage rate of 20.79 percent must be maintained," the association said.
The association rebuffed the government's claim that total grant funding and per-student grants would continue to rise even after the reform. "Even if the total grant amount is maintained, rising prices and labor costs mean schools will have less real financial capacity on the ground," the association said. "Per-student grants can rise arithmetically as student numbers fall, even without any increase in total funding."
The association said the government had drawn up the reform plan within its own ministries without adequate consultation with the superintendents who directly manage local education finances. It urged the government to form a formal consultative body that includes the superintendents and to restart discussions from scratch on grant calculation methods, appropriate funding levels, and future education needs.
As its first collective action, the association said it would boycott the education office budget directors' meeting scheduled for Tuesday. "We cannot accept an approach that excludes superintendents from the policy decision-making process and instead delivers government directives to working-level officials and asks for their cooperation," the association said. "The harder the government pushes ahead with reform without consultation, the stronger the joint response from the 16 provincial and metropolitan education offices will become."
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