The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has slashed its budget for improving ventilation systems in school cafeterias by 76% for the 2025 academic year due to a decrease in local education finance. This significant cutback has raised concerns about the health and safety of school cafeteria workers.

According to the 2025 budget proposal, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has allocated 284.62 billion won for cafeteria projects, a 66.8% decrease from the 856.46 billion won allocated in the current fiscal year. Of this amount, only 84.23 billion won will be used to improve cafeteria ventilation systems, a significant reduction from the 350 billion won allocated in the current budget.

Improving ventilation systems in school cafeterias is crucial for the health of cafeteria workers. These workers are exposed to harmful substances known as "cooking fumes" when preparing meals, which contain fine dust, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), has classified cooking fumes as a Group 2A carcinogen, meaning there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans but sufficient evidence in experimental animals.

As cases of lung cancer among cafeteria workers have been increasingly recognized as occupational diseases, the Ministry of Education and local education offices have implemented measures to improve cooking environments in school cafeterias. In June, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced a "Seoul-type cafeteria ventilation improvement guideline," which includes measures such as installing fume hoods on cooking equipment to prevent workers from directly inhaling cooking fumes and installing side panels on hoods to improve fume extraction efficiency.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education had originally planned to allocate 340.6 billion won over five years to improve ventilation systems in 1,002 schools. However, due to a decrease in local education finance, the overall budget for facility projects has been cut by half, leading to significant reductions in funding for cafeteria ventilation improvements.

The decrease in local education finance is primarily due to the expiration of laws that allow for the transfer of tobacco taxes to local education funds and the national government's share of the costs for free high school education.

A spokesperson for the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education stated that the decrease in the budget has made it difficult to carry out facility improvement projects, as a large portion of the budget is already allocated to fixed costs such as personnel and operating expenses.

Kim Han-ol, the policy planning director of the Korean Confederation of Education and Public Service Workers' Union, expressed concerns about the budget cuts, stating that improving cafeteria ventilation systems is a matter of life and safety. "Even with the overall reduction in facility project funding, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education should at least consider allocating the level of funding outlined in its guidelines," Kim said.

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