Osan City Receives Minister of Interior and Safety Award for Administrative Service Co-production

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Osan City announced on the 1st that it has been selected as an outstanding case in the social innovation sector for the "2019 Administrative Service Co-production" and will receive the Minister of Interior and Safety Award. The award ceremony will be held separately.

Administrative service co-production refers to local governments and residents jointly planning, producing, and delivering administrative services to revitalize local communities and promote social innovation.

The city submitted the social cooperative public childcare center case, emerging as a new public childcare model, to the social innovation sector in the 2019 Administrative Service Co-production Excellence Contest. It received the Minister's Award after passing the first written review, second national online review, and third presentation review.

The social cooperative public childcare centers depart from the existing childcare center-centered operations and are managed as open and participatory childcare centers where parents, teachers, and the local community make decisions proactively based on autonomous participation and mutual trust. Currently, six public childcare centers in Osan City are scheduled to transition to social cooperatives by 2020.

To improve awareness of social cooperatives, approximately 120 people participated in four educational sessions for parents and childcare teachers. As preparatory work for the transition, the city implemented parent education, parent participatory classes, in-house events, and voluntary "second-hand exchange events" in cooperation with the local community.

Going forward, the city plans to actively support education and consultancy services for the smooth transition of public childcare centers to social cooperatives, improve the quality of public childcare, promote the operation of open and participatory childcare centers, and create a safe childcare environment.