From a 1961 nursery law to the 2004 split, and what the Nuri curriculum is taken to have already done

It opens with a recent announcement, left as it places it, in which a deputy prime minister who is also the minister of education said the integration of early-childhood education and daycare would be brought to a close, and various measures and changes were signaled. Integration means combining early-childhood education and care. The idea has been raised continuously from 1961, when a law on takaso, the earlier form of today’s daycare center, was enacted. From 2004, as the government revised the Infant and Child Care Act and a bill for an Early Childhood Education Act was passed, a split appeared. Related bills were initiated separately by the education committee and by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, bringing about a dual system. As the need to bring the two back together was raised, the Nuri curriculum began to be applied to children aged 3 to 5. An integrated curriculum, the essay says, has already been carried out through Nuri, and the government is moving to prepare a legal system that would integrate the two in earnest. The government has put forward that a unified management system would let education and care be provided equally and universally to children before school, and that integration would ease inconvenience for parents and administrative inefficiency, including a dual system of support cards.

In fact, the essay says, the problems are far more numerous than the need. Kindergartens were made for early-childhood education, daycare centers to protect children of lower-income families; they are managed by different ministries and differ in teacher training and conditions. Integration was meant to narrow a qualitative gap and to ease a tilt toward kindergartens, even as costs are high, distrust remains over daycare fees, and daycare teachers’ conditions are low. The essay calls this a way of deepening older problems. Unifying facilities now in use would limit intake; even at maximum, teachers would manage many children, so conditions and quality would not improve. If administrative systems were integrated at once, which ministry would lead could become a problem. The largest problem is the budget. Nuri, already applied to ages 3 to 5, is a first step by combining the burden of funding, but the government has not properly supported that budget and has passed the responsibility to local education finances, which only increases local debt.

Confrontation between the two institutions, a hasty plan, and the writer’s own view

Some view integration as desirable because it would widen parents’ choice, but the more urgent problem may be confrontation between daycare centers and kindergartens. Private kindergartens argue that unifying accounts would infringe on autonomous operation, and daycare centers that have cared for infants also resist facility integration. Excessive private education already places a high burden on families. At a point when few institutions provide quality early care, combining them would narrow choice further, and parents would worry over which to choose when institutions that care for different ages are put together. If teachers cared for young children and infants in a unified facility without a proper system, only confusion would follow. Teacher qualifications, gaps in conditions, and differences in services should first have systematic alternatives; there are also far fewer kindergartens than daycare centers, so accessibility already differs. In practice, integration is likely to be kindergarten-centered, because the education ministry lacks expertise in care policy and because the status of daycare teachers differs, which could leave infants without a diverse educational opportunity. Dual-income families’ care, an increase in private education if all-day care could no longer be offered, and a gap in weekend and night education are also named.

The writer’s view is that integration should proceed for ages 3 to 5, with linked supervision of teachers and services, while unifying financial support for facilities and teachers for ages 0 to 5, looking to the long term, and that gaps in teachers’ conditions and in service quality should be reduced. That would require a considerable government outlay and much research on how to integrate different services. The writer personally opposes proceeding now, judging that the government does not have the capacity to solve these problems, and, thinking of how Nuri’s budget was passed to local governments, holds that integration would be unreasonable unless applied more in the long term. If it is truly to be carried out, methods that can address these problems should be devised first, the budget firmly drawn up so that responsibility is not passed on as with Nuri, the state’s responsibility for care facilities not weakened, free childcare strengthened, and the public character of care and early-childhood education strengthened through a stable securing of funds. Sources named are Lee Hae-jeong, 2016, for the Korean Society for Children’s Education, and Yoon In-suk, 2016, at Dong-A University. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. It opens with a recent announcement, in which a deputy prime minister who is also the minister of education said the integration of early-childhood education and daycare centers would be brought to a close, and various education measures and various changes by the integration were signaled. Proceeding as a process of integrating early-childhood education and care together can give birth to many changes, and various changes can also arise among teachers, daycare centers, and kindergartens. Integration means combining early-childhood education and care, and this integration has been continuously raised from 1961, when a law related to takaso, which can be called the earlier form of the daycare center, was enacted. But from 2004, as the government revised the Infant and Child Care Act in the National Assembly and a bill for enactment of an Early Childhood Education Act was passed, a phenomenon of separation of early education and care came about. Accordingly, bills related to the integration were each initiated in the National Assembly by the education committee and by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and were enacted in the Assembly, bringing about a result that called forth a dualization of care and early-childhood education. But as the necessity that early-childhood education and care should again be combined integratively was raised through various channels, the Nuri curriculum began to be applied to young children aged 3 to 5 in kindergartens, daycare centers, and the like. That is, an integrated curriculum for young children has already been carried out through the Nuri curriculum, and it can be said that the government is moving in order to prepare a legal system that would integrate early-childhood education and care in earnest. As to the necessity of the integration, the government has put forward that by unifying the management system it would be possible to provide education and care services equally and universally at the same time to children before school. That is, in order to provide education and care services in common to children before school, the integration is necessary, and experts are saying that this is a desirable direction of development. Also, a claim has been raised that the integration is necessary in order to ease the inconvenience of parents who carry on infant and young-child care and education and to solve administratively inefficient problems. Because dividing early-childhood education and care separately is at present an administratively unnecessary matter as well, the integration should be proceeded with even for the sake of efficiency, and the integration is necessary in order to provide convenience also when information about education is provided to parents, but in fact it can be said that in the integration the problems are far more numerous than the necessity. The facility level of kindergartens and daycare centers would have to be unified, and among parents who send a child to kindergarten government support is received on the child’s-joy card, while parents who send a young child to a daycare center receive support on a different card, and how this dualized phenomenon is to be resolved is also one example. If the integration were carried out, because kindergartens, originally made with early-childhood education as their purpose, and daycare centers, made in order to protect children of lower-income families, have purposes different from each other, the manner in which different ministries manage and evaluate them also differs, and the process of training teachers and their conditions are differentiated, there is an expectation that this could be resolved. There is still a distrust that children crowd only into kindergartens even though education costs are high, and that daycare fees are used as a director’s personal money, and because conditions for daycare teachers are low it is difficult to provide quality care, and these are problems that were sought to be solved by the integration. It is said that unification is being proceeded with in order to provide quality early-childhood care by narrowing the qualitative gap between the two institutions and to prevent a phenomenon of tilting toward kindergartens, but this integration cannot but be expressed as a method that deepens problems that were held in the past. Even if kindergartens and daycare centers are combined, if the facilities now being used are unified, the numbers that one facility can take in will be limited. Also, even if the maximum number that one facility can take in is taken in, because of teachers who must manage many people, teachers’ conditions will not improve, and because of this the quality of early-childhood care will still be low. If the administrative system too is integrated at once, a problem can also arise as to which ministry will proceed with and lead the process of the integration in which unification has been carried out. The largest problem is the budget, and the Nuri curriculum that is already being implemented can be called a typical example. The present Nuri curriculum can be called an integration that was implemented in advance, targeted at young children aged 3 to 5, and the first step of the integration was taken by integrating the financial burden. But the government, without properly supporting a budget for the Nuri curriculum, came to pass the responsibility to the education finances of local governments, and this has become a shape that only increases the debt of local governments and is counted a large problem. There is also a view that the integration can be applied desirably because it would make parents’ right of choice convenient and wide, but in fact confrontation between daycare centers and kindergartens can be applied as a more urgent problem than parents. Private kindergartens are arguing that unification of accounts is something that infringes on autonomous operation, and daycare centers that have until now cared for infants also, resisting facility integration with kindergartens and the integration itself, have given rise to confrontation between kindergartens and daycare centers. A fundamental task that should be solved by this integration is that, without distinguishing daycare centers and kindergartens, excessive private education is being carried out and the burden that a family must bear is high, and the budget should be increased by reducing inappropriate institutions. But if, at a point when institutions that provide quality early-childhood care in kindergartens and daycare centers are already few, the integration of combining them is proceeded with, parents’ right of choice will only become still narrower, and above all, from the very combining of daycare centers and kindergartens that care for ages different from each other, parents will come to worry over which institution they should choose. Also, narrowing a qualitative gap through the integration can induce various problems, including budget problems, problems about facilities, and problems about teachers. If teachers care for young children and infants inside a facility in which unification has been carried out through the integration, in a state in which a proper system is not in place, only the utmost confusion will be caused. The integration is at present proceeding easily in words, but in fact, because pending issues that must be solved and must be checked in the process in which the integration is carried out are far more numerous, proceeding with the integration hastily can be a large problem. The integration should first be inspected in detail and how the procedure should be proceeded with should first be decided, and alternatives as to how to overcome differences from teacher qualifications of daycare centers and kindergartens through gaps in conditions, and differences in the services the two institutions provide, should first be put forward, but if the integration is proceeded with without even a proper systematic measure for that, only confusion can be caused. Also, as to the fact that there are far fewer kindergartens than daycare centers, accessibility with respect to the two institutions already differs, and proceeding with the integration without first putting forward a measure as to how this too will be resolved can cause only premature confusion. Besides this, in practice there is a high possibility that integration will be carried out centered on kindergartens, and because of problems such as a lack of expertise about care policy proceeded with in the Ministry of Education and a difference in the status of daycare teachers from kindergarten teachers, integration will proceed centered on kindergartens. But this can become an integration that does not provide infants with a diverse opportunity for education, and therefore the purpose that was raised in the necessity of the integration will disappear. Various problems that will arise because of this will include the problem of care of children of dual-income families, and problems such as private education increasing and parents’ economic burden rising because daycare centers that had been carrying on all-day care can no longer carry on all-day care, and a problem of a gap with respect to weekend and night education will also arise. The writer’s personal view is that it is necessary to proceed with the integration targeted at ages 3 to 5, but to push a linked integration that manages and supervises teachers and services of the integrated-process program, and at the same time, for ages 0 to 5, to unify financial support for facilities, teachers, and the like, looking to the long term. Also, no matter what process is gone through, the difference between daycare-center and kindergarten teachers should be reduced, and the integration should be proceeded with so that the quality of service of the two institutions is also reduced in its difference. For this the government would have to spend a considerably large cost, and in fact this is an all too natural reality. That is because, in order to integrate kindergartens and daycare centers at present, a huge budget will be required, and much research and discussion must also be carried out as to how the process will be integrated with respect to early-childhood care that is providing services different from each other. In fact, personally, judging that the government at present does not have the capacity to solve these problems, the writer holds an opposing position toward the integration, and, thinking of the past practice of the central government that, unable to support the budget properly, passed the Nuri curriculum to the judgment and responsibility of local governments, thinks that the integration, unless applied more in the long term and in the future, is unreasonable in the present society. Personally the writer thinks that the integration is a policy in which the problems to be lost are far more numerous than the necessity. While the problems that kindergartens and daycare centers each hold at present are also not properly solved, to implement the integration without any measure and development plan is certainly a problem. Therefore, if the integration is truly to be implemented, methods that can clearly address these various problems should be devised and implemented, and the budget too should be firmly drawn up and then proceeded with, so that, as with the Nuri curriculum, the budget is not not properly supported and this responsibility passed to local governments. Also, when the integration is pushed forward, it should be proceeded with in a way that can strengthen free childcare, without weakening the state’s responsibility with respect to care facilities, and it should be proceeded with in a way that, through a stable securing of funds and the like, the public character of care and early-childhood education can be strengthened. Only when these various measures are prepared, the essay says, can the integration proceed properly. Lee Hae-jeong, “A study on the present state and direction of the integration of early-childhood education and care,” Korean Society for Children’s Education, 2016. Yoon In-suk, “Perceptions of the integration of early-childhood education and care,” Dong-A University, 2016.

Last updated: 14 November 2026