The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced on the 27th the ‘2023 Warm Seoul Education Comprehensive Integrity Improvement Plan’ as a core strategy to raise the temperature of integrity with love (4온) to realize warm and transparent Seoul education trusted and shared by Seoul citizens.
This policy consists of △Creating an integrity ecosystem with warm (溫) Seoul citizens △Establishing and operating a warm (ALL) integrity system △Focusing on managing integrity-vulnerable areas with warm (concentration) △Fostering a warm (communication) integrity culture.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education prepared this policy based on a customized analysis focused on vulnerable areas in Seoul education as a countermeasure for receiving a grade 3 consecutively in the comprehensive integrity evaluation by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in 2021 and 2022.
In particular, when establishing and implementing integrity policies, the emphasis was placed on enhancing communication to reflect the opinions of not only school staff but also Seoul citizens and to strengthen the commitment to integrity together, thereby increasing the transparency of Seoul education administration as perceived by Seoul citizens.
Additionally, to prevent recurrence of weaknesses identified in the 2022 comprehensive integrity evaluation, such as concentrated management of construction and sports teams and insufficient protection of whistleblowers (corruption/public interest), promotional education will be provided to civil complaint officers of each institution. Furthermore, a system will be established to implement five unfulfilled recommended tasks for institutional improvement by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.
Moreover, plans include sending integrity letters directly to parents, conducting training on the code of conduct (prevention of power abuse) for staff by the Superintendent, and holding integrity strategy meetings chaired by the Superintendent to check the implementation of integrity in institutions and discuss best practices.
The main detailed tasks aim to strengthen policy momentum by expanding the collection of opinions and participation of members, and to take the lead in eradicating corruption through reforming anti-corruption systems prioritizing autonomy and prevention and focusing on managing integrity-vulnerable areas.
To this end, initiatives include △Revamping the integrity emblem (Cheongnabi) △Expanding and upgrading the preventive audit system for corruption-vulnerable areas within the educational administration support system △Enhancing transparency in administrative agency recruitment processes △Providing regional-level budget support for promoting Seoul education integrity policies △Producing an integrity handbook.
Also, △Diagnosing corruption risks for high-ranking officials and utilizing it in personnel evaluations △Conducting integrated anti-corruption law-related integrity education for all school staff △Providing gap-filling integrity education △Strengthening innovative integrity promotion such as integrating integrity into citizens’ daily lives and using public transportation.
Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, explained, “We will faithfully implement this comprehensive integrity improvement plan so that the third-term educational vision of innovative future education of coexistence where diversity blooms can be realized, and strive for transparent Seoul education trusted by citizens.”
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