Candidates for Mayor and Education Head Form Alliance

Candidates for Seoul mayor and education head are teaming up to gain advantage in local elections.

The Seoul mayor and Seoul superintendent of education's seats are up for grabs in local elections slated for June 13.

Several candidates for Seoul mayor are looking to join hands with candidates for superintendent, creating election alliances.

Such alliances, however, are raising questions following a recently revealed joint proposal.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) and the Seoul Metropolitan Government jointly released a general plan, "The 2018-2021 Future Education City," Monday.

Thirty-eight departments of the city government and the education office will be in charge of the four-year project with a total budget of 1.9 trillion won ($1.76 billion).

The plan aims to remove chalkboards and writing utensils to make classrooms more future oriented by installing numerous IT devices.

However, the timing of the release of the plan, just ahead of the local elections could be a strong indicator that current Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and Seoul Superintendent of Education Cho Hee-yeon could be joining forces.

There are growing concerns, as the position of superintendent should be independent from any party affiliations.

Park's visit to Cho Hee-yeon's book publication ceremony last February initially gave the impression that the two might be teaming up.

Furthermore, the joint plan doesn't seem to have significant changes, mostly updates from previous education policies.

This is raising even more suspicion that the policy was released to help boost their popularity before the election.

The project has four major fields divided into 36 subcategories.

Out of the 36 subcategories, 11 are newly introduced, while 25 of them are scheduled to be upgraded or expanded.

The four major fields include enhancing youth creativity, increasing science classes and providing opportunities for early career experience.

They will also provide an education environment without discrimination and will boost cooperation with city districts to strengthen lifelong and extended learning.

Critics have been blasting the new plan calling it empty and similar to a proposal announced in 2014.

"The cooperation model between the city government and education office is significant" said Kim Jae-chul, spokesman for the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations. "But claiming to release a new policy, which is empty without significant changes, is something to be...

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