Operations of nurseries and kindergartens will be integrated with the Education Ministry becoming the single institution to manage the overall policies of children up to age 11, the government said Thursday, stressing that the plan is aimed at improving efficiency in policies to tackle the nation's plummeting birth rate.

For more than 30 years, Korea's early childhood education and care system has been divided into kindergartens and day care centers under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, respectively, creating disparities in the services provided to children depending on which institution they attend, according to the ministry.

In Korea, children aged up to 5 can go to nurseries that mainly offer child care services. Kindergartens accept children aged from 3 to 5 only, focusing more on offering education before they go to elementary schools.

The renewed operation after the merger would start as early as 2026, with the education ministry taking the relevant budget allocated to the welfare ministry. Specifics of the integrated institutions, including admission methods and qualifications of teachers, are expected to be finalized by the end of the year after conducting a thorough public consultation.

"In a recent survey conducted by the committee on the low birth rate and aging population, 76.4 percent of people said they would give birth to a child if they had an organization or person they trusted. Creating early childhood education and care environments that parents can trust with their children is essential to reversing the birth rate decline," said Education Minister Lee Ju-ho at a briefing Thursday.

Under the new blueprint, all infants and young children aged up to 5 will be guaranteed 12 hours of care per day, with four hours of additional morning and evening care from the current basic care of eight hours.

In order to support working and self-employed parents, public kindergartens will expand the number of classes available during school holidays and pilot base centers that provide care on Saturdays and holidays from 2025.

The government will also dramatically improve teacher-infant ratios so that teachers can better care for and educate each child. For the case of children under 1 year old, the government aims to have one teacher per two infants from the current one teacher per three infants. For 3- to 5-year-olds, the ratio is targeted to reach 1:8 from the current average of 1:12.

To ease parents' financial burden for sending their children to kindergartens and nurseries, free education and child care for 3- to 5-year-olds is to be realized in stages by 2027, starting with 5-year-olds in 2025.

Meanwhile, criticisms remain as Thursday's announcement pushes back the timetable for the launch of the integrated institution, which was initially planned to kick off in 2025 according to the ministry's plan last year.

There are still obstacles to overcome, mainly the treatment of teachers in day care centers and kindergartens as the qualification system or paths for each occupation differ.

While it is required for kindergarten teachers to have a degree in early childhood education from a vocational college or university and hold a certificate of a licensed teacher, nursery school teachers need at least a high school degree and a national qualification of nursery school teacher, which can be obtained comparatively within a short period, to work in the field.

The legal status of nursery teachers will change from workers to teachers in the coming integrated institutions in the future, but the ministry has yet to come up with specific guidelines on how to manage the different qualification requirements, which garnered opposition, especially from kindergarten teachers.

"When the unification law is implemented, we need to hear opinions on whether to convert them (to teachers) en masse or to do it in order of those who have obtained certain qualifications," said a ministry official.