Busan Office of Education Improves Teacher Personnel System ... Addresses Regional Education Disparities

Busan Metropolitan Office of Education will revise and implement personnel-related regulations for the 2024 academic year, including teacher and professional staff personnel management standards and promotion bonus point evaluation regulations, to reduce educational disparities between regions.

To improve the system by reflecting opinions from the school field, Busan Office of Education held more than 20 meetings with school administrators and teachers since April and operated a task force (TF) for personnel system improvement. Additionally, an online survey was conducted in May targeting over 11,200 teachers.

The Office of Education focused on establishing promotion bonus points and teacher transfer-related regulations aimed at reducing educational disparities between regions through this personnel system improvement.

The promotion system’s basic direction is to improve working conditions at schools in the Western Busan area and old downtown areas, boosting teachers’ morale and providing appropriate rewards for educational activities.

They established provisions such as granting promotion bonus points to teachers with long-term service in the Western Busan and old downtown areas and expanding the schools eligible for regional bonus points. For secondary education, overlapping of regional bonus points and bonus points for outstanding educational activities is allowed, and the total current regional bonus points have been pre-announced to increase from 0.75 points to 1 point.

The transfer system’s basic direction is to activate the teacher rotation system to resolve the uneven concentration of teachers between schools and regions.

Busan Office of Education.

For elementary school transfers, full permission for inter-education office invitations to schools in the old downtown and Western Busan areas will be granted, along with expanding the proportion of invited teachers and transfer deferrals.

For secondary school transfers, plans include expanding transfer permissions between schools eligible for bonus points, limiting continuous transfers between special-purpose high schools to one time, and adjusting the school group level for general curriculum teachers at specialized high schools to prevent teacher concentration.

In particular, the transfer deferral by principal recommendation, which was abolished in 2016, will be re-permitted for one teacher per school to address teacher shortages.

Additionally, national policies responding to low birth rates have been reflected by expanding the criteria for multi-child teachers to “three or more children including one child born after 2006” and raising transfer bonus points.

Yu Byeong-sun, head of the Teacher Personnel Division at the Busan Office of Education, said, “This revision is meaningful in that it establishes an institutional foundation to reduce educational disparities between regions by reflecting changes in the educational environment and demands from the school field. Moving forward, our Office of Education will continue efforts to develop personnel systems that enhance school educational capacity and increase teacher job satisfaction.”