SEOUL – A rural district in South Jeolla province has pledged a benefits package for families of students who join a school in Hongdo, a small island off South Korea’s south-western coast suffering from a population drop.
Sinan-gun, the jurisdiction in which Hongdo lies, said on Tuesday that it has received inquiries from more than 80 households related to its planned cash incentives for new pupils at Heuksan Elementary School’s Hongdo branch, which will see all three of its pupils graduate in February 2024.
Currently, it does not have pupils slated to enrol next year.
In a desperate bid to save the school, the district promised that a household with a pupil enrolling in the school would be provided with a residence with at least two rooms, a job that pays about 3.2 million won (S$3,200) a month and financial subsidies of 400,000 won per child.
Sinan-gun said it plans to recruit four pupils and their families, with the plan to provide a comfortable home for them.
The district plans to invite the final 12 qualifying households to Hongdo to host a meeting with locals, and to show them around the school and related facilities.
Households with more elementary-level pupils and younger students will have priority in the selection process.
“Seeing as (the policy) has sparked substantial interest in the Hongdo school case, we plan to expand the plan for small schools in Heuksando and other islands,” Sinan-gun chief Park Woo-ryang said.
According to the South Jeolla province Office of Education in April, 31 schools in the province did not have a single new student for the new school year that started in March.
Between the majority of South Koreans being concentrated in the Greater Seoul area and the country’s population on a downward trend since 2020, the Jeolla provinces have suffered from a persistently decreasing population.
An April report from Statistics Korea’s regional branch showed that 15,565 people left the region in 2022.
As at 2023, 4.99 million people live in North and South Jeolla provinces and Gwangju.
The population in the region peaked in 1966 with 6.57 million, and has been on a downward trajectory ever since. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
