Busan Office of Education, Fully Committed to Improving Safe and Comfortable Cafeteria Environments

A Total Budget of 101.7 Billion KRW Allocated This Year
Including Complete Replacement of Ventilation Facilities

Busan Metropolitan Office of Education (Acting Superintendent Choi Yoon-hong) is embarking on a groundbreaking improvement of the school meal environment, one of the 27 major tasks to be promoted in 2025.

In particular, a total of 101.7 billion KRW will be invested to ensure substantial environmental improvements, including a complete replacement of ventilation facilities in school cafeterias.

First, the placement standards for cooking staff, which were improved in the first phase last year, will be further enhanced. The plan is to increase the number of cooking staff by 100 in 2025 and by a total of 300 by 2026.

To eliminate causes of respiratory diseases among meal service workers, such as cooking fumes, a full replacement of ventilation facilities will also be undertaken. The originally scheduled full replacement of kitchen ventilation systems by 2026 will be advanced to 2025, with 13 billion KRW invested in 205 schools.

Additionally, this year, 34 elementary, middle, high, and special schools will receive a modernization budget of 34.2 billion KRW for their cafeterias. Furthermore, 22.7 billion KRW will be spent to support the replacement of outdated cooking equipment with electric devices, such as switching from gas to electric cooking appliances, across 385 schools.

As a project to prevent various diseases among cooking staff and improve working conditions, pilot operations of meal preparation robots and the introduction of electric rice cookers with automatic rotation functions will be promoted.

To reduce the cleaning burden in hazardous areas of cafeterias such as hoods and ducts, 14.8 billion KRW in service fees will be supported for all schools, and pilot projects to lighten drainage covers (gratings) and other equipment will continue to be promoted.

Choi Yoon-hong, Acting Superintendent of Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, stated, “We will do our best to provide a safe and comfortable meal environment for both school meal workers and the educational community.”