In recent years, many countries have increased investment in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as it brings a wide range of benefits, including better child well-being and learning outcomes, poverty reduction, increased fertility rates and higher female labor market participation.

The Korean government has also started to expand investment in ECEC to reap its benefits. The first thing it did was to assume more responsibility for education of children at age 5.

In 2011, the government developed a common preschool curriculum for 5-year-olds for use by both kindergartens and child-care centers. Previously, the two institutions taught different curricula. Kindergartens used the National Kindergarten Curriculum, while child-care centers used the Standard Child Care Curriculum.

The common preschool curriculum, dubbed the Nuri Curriculum, began to be taught from March this year. To make it universally available, the government expanded its subsidy scheme. Previously, the subsidies were offered to children from families in the bottom 70 percent of the income ladder. From March this year, they were provided to all 5-year-olds attending a kindergarten or a day-care facility.

In an unexpected move, the government also expanded its subsidy scheme for toddlers under 24 months old. Previously, the benefits were given to the bottom 70 percent of Korean families. Now, they are provided to all families that send their children to a day-care facility.

The government’s ECEC initiatives were a step in the right direction. However, the problem was that they were implemented without due preparation. The government should have considered beforehand the funding capabilities of local governments and the accommodation capacities of existing child-care institutions.

As a result, local governments have had a hard time this year meeting their share of the financing burden for ECEC. Kindergartens and child-care centers also had difficulties due to the abrupt surge in enrollment.

Next year, the problem is expected to worsen as the government will expand its ECEC program for children aged 3 and 4. It has already developed the Nuri Curricula for these children and plans to offer day-care subsidies to all families that enroll their 3- and 4-year-olds at a kindergarten or a day-care facility. Currently, the subsidies are provided to those in the bottom 70 percent of the income scale.

According to reports, local councils of several big cities and provinces, including Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, have recently refused to pass budget bills for next year, saying that the spending proposals related to ECEC are simply beyond their financing abilities.

These councils argue that the central government should shoulder the additional funding burden as their financial resources have already been depleted due to the universal free school-lunch scheme as well as the expanded ECEC schemes for children aged 0-2 and 5.

The central government and local governments need to resolve the funding problem through dialogue as they can neither scale down the ECEC program nor delay its planned expansion. The power to do so is in the hands of the main political parties, which have already pledged to increase investment in ECEC.

Instead of engaging in unseemly wrangling, they need to speed up the construction of kindergartens and state-run day-care centers. Recently, kindergartens and day-care centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province were crowded with parents who sought slots for their children. Due to the limited capacities of these institutions, many parents could not register their children.