The government plans to make all high school education free by 2017 as pledged by President Park Geun-hye on the campaign trail, but the biggest hurdle remains how to appropriate the mammoth budget for the plan.

Cheong Wa Dae, the ruling Saenuri Party and the Education Ministry agreed Tuesday to gradually increase the number of high schools providing free education starting next year.

This is in line with Park’s promise to raise the number of free schools from 2014 by 25 percent through subsidizing admission fees, tuition and text book purchases.

The tripartite body also agreed to enable contract workers at schools to become regular employees after more than a year of employment, shortening the current required time of two years.

They also agreed to fortify history education at schools and continue discussions through August on ways to incorporate history into college admission tests, as a follow-up to Park’s recent emphasis on bolstering history education. 

Korea’s free education extended from elementary schools to middle schools in 2005. Further expanding the benefit to high schoolers has so far proven to be more difficult due to steep costs.

Free education for high schoolers, when introduced, will benefit some 1.8 million students nationwide, with the annual subsidies for each student reaching 1.7 million won-2 million won.

The plan will be introduced in phases by having high school students living in smaller rural areas benefit from free education first and gradually expanding it to urban areas. Special and elite high schools where the tuition is autonomously set by school heads, will be excluded from the plan.

While education superintendents of each city and province reportedly favor funding the entire budget with state coffers, the government is leaning toward sharing the burden with the municipalities.

Relevant ministries have estimated varying budgets for the plan, with the Education Ministry projecting around 9.3 trillion won while the Finance Ministry approximated 7.7 trillion won.

The ruling Saenuri Party has argued that the size of the budget will change depending on whether or not separate subsidies for students from low-income families are included, and that introducing free education for high schools alone will cost the government about 3.4 trillion won. It is expected to take approximately 2.1 trillion won annually afterward to maintain the policy.

Due to such differences, the Tuesday meeting failed to agree on ways to appropriate the funds.

The Saenuri Party said it would continue to discuss it with the local education chiefs and announce the detailed budget plan in September during the regular National Assembly session.

Observers said that while introducing free high school education will be welcomed by the opposition parties as well as the public, the government may be criticized for pulling back on other key welfare pledges such as basic pension for senior citizens.

During the presidential campaign last year, Park had promised to change the old-age pension to a basic pension scheme by doubling its monthly benefit and covering all senior citizens aged 65 or above. The program, however, was scaled back to pay benefits only to elderly people in the lower 70 percent of the income scale.

Meanwhile, critics such as the headquarters of irregular workers at schools under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions were positive about the plan to shorten the required period to become a regular employees, but expressed regret over the lack of measures tackling discrimination in pay.

There are currently about 140,000 irregular workers employed at schools, with 92.9 percent of them women.

In terms of fortifying history education, the government and the ruling party agreed to draw up detailed measures this month.

The options include having Korean history as a requisite subject for the college entrance exam from 2017, or linking scores from a standardized national history test with college entry qualifications.

By Lee Joo-hee (jhl@heraldcorp.com)