Gyeonggi Office of Education Introduces 'Appropriate Size School Optimization Model' to Reduce School-Aged Population

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education will push for policies to optimize the size of schools by region, such as integrating small schools or expanding educational facilities in line with the decreasing school-age population.

The Provincial Office of Education announced today (11th) the "Gyeonggi-type Appropriate Size School Optimization Model (5C)," which contains five types of school creation plans.

Among the types presented this time, the "Center" is an integrated operation of small schools around the base schools, and is largely divided into two ways.

One is to designate a base school among elementary schools in a population-devastated area so that senior students from several small elementary schools nearby can commute to school, and the rest of the schools are designated as branches for lower-grade students.

The other way is to group several small schools and designate them as joint school districts, and share the educational facilities of nearby base schools by school district.

[Create] aims to integrate small schools and reorganize them into boarding schools in preparation for the increase in the number of students who have to commute across cities and counties due to a decrease in the number of schools in the future.

(Combine) is a method of establishing an integrated operating school combining adjacent elementary, middle and high schools and establishing several schools such as special purpose high schools, alternative schools, and online schools on the closed site.

At the integrated operating school, elementary, middle, and high school students use different buildings for each level and share sports facilities.

'Complex' is to use the closed school site as a shared school, always spring school, etc., or to create amenities for local residents such as libraries, gyms, swimming pools, and parking lots.

'(Connect) is promoted in a way that each education support office and local governments collaborate to use the existing closed school site as a residential facility for residents.

The provincial education office said in September that it had reorganized the contents with the response and consent of a majority of parents of schools that met the Ministry of Education's "Recommendation Standards for Promotion of Proper School Development."