Seoul City to Reduce Number of Children per Childcare Teacher at Daycare Centers... Pilot Operation at 110 Locations

Selected 110 Public and National Childcare Centers to Launch in July... Full Local Government Funding for Newly Hired Childcare Teachers' Salaries
Reduced Class Sizes from 3 to 2 in '0-Year-Old Class' and from 15 to 10 in '3-Year-Old Class' to Alleviate Workload and Prevent Safety Accidents

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is improving the 'teacher-to-child ratio,' the top priority demand of daycare parents and childcare workers, to enhance the quality of childcare services. The goal is to reduce the excessive workload of childcare teachers, create a childcare environment that allows interaction between children and teachers, and prevent safety accidents within daycare centers.

On the 20th, Seoul announced that it will select 110 public daycare centers through an open recruitment and launch a pilot project. The city will fully support the personnel expenses so that each daycare center can hire one additional childcare teacher, thereby reducing the number of children cared for by one teacher. From July, the newly hired teachers will be deployed to start the pilot project, which will run until the end of next year.

The selected daycare centers will establish new classes and assign the newly hired dedicated childcare teachers. The number of children per teacher will be reduced from 3 to 2 in the '0-year-old class' and from 15 to 10 in the '3-year-old class.' Seoul plans to additionally implement the pilot project for private and home daycare centers in 2022.

Currently, the number of children per childcare teacher in daycare centers in Seoul complies with the 'Infant and Toddler Care Act,' but compared to the average of major OECD countries, the childcare burden on teachers is increasing. According to the Infant and Toddler Care Act, the number of children a childcare teacher must care for is set as follows: 3 for 0-year-olds, 5 for 1-year-olds, 7 for 2-year-olds, 15 for 3-year-olds, and 20 for 4 years and older. Compared to the OECD country average, teachers are caring for 6 more children per teacher.

Seoul will start an online business briefing for the 25 autonomous districts and publicly recruit public daycare centers for 10 days from the 21st to the 30th through each district. After each district conducts its own evaluation based on screening criteria for the daycare centers that applied, they will recommend a total of 175 centers, 7 per district, to Seoul. The city will then select a total of 110 centers in May, including 100 existing public centers and 10 new public centers.

Kang Hee-eun, Seoul’s childcare officer, said, “As the first metropolitan government to lower the teacher-to-child ratio targeting the 0-year-old and 3-year-old classes, where childcare teachers have the heaviest workload, we will provide childcare services that satisfy children, parents, and childcare teachers alike. We will do our best to expand this to all daycare centers and all age groups through close cooperation with childcare organizations and the Ministry of Health and Welfare.”