Gyeonggi Province Faces Shortage in Cultural Heritage Management

While each city and county managing Gyeonggi Province-designated cultural heritage properties handles more than 30% of the holdings, a critical shortage of specialized personnel dedicated to heritage management has resulted in cultural property administrative work falling short each year.

According to administrative inspection data from the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau submitted to Gyeonggi Province by Provincial Council Member Lee Gye-won (Saenuri, Gimpo District 1) on the 11th, Gyeonggi Province-designated cultural heritage (general moveable cultural properties), excluding intangible cultural heritage, comprises 94 tangible cultural properties, 113 cultural heritage materials, and 178 monuments, totaling 395 sites.

By city and county, Anseong has 40 sites, Yongin 34 sites, and Paju 31 sites. Excluding cultural properties managed by owners (including clan associations), each city and county manages 124 sites, representing 31.4% of the total.

The province and each city and county invest provincial funds, municipal funds, and decentralization transfer taxes annually according to cultural heritage maintenance plans to undertake projects preventing cultural property deterioration. In 2011, 13.6 billion won was invested (8.4 billion won in municipal funds, 5.2 billion won in decentralization transfer taxes) in repairs for 144 projects.

Following the implementation of 122 projects with 12.2 billion won last year, this year 94 projects have been allocated 9.4 billion won (3.8 billion won in municipal funds, 5.6 billion won in decentralization transfer taxes).

However, there are only 39 heritage specialists with degrees in archaeology, art history of archaeology, aesthetics, or art history who dedicate themselves to cultural heritage work, with each managing 10 cultural properties.

Notably, eight locations including Uijeongbu City lack dedicated heritage specialists and are handled by rotating administrative staff, while remaining areas with heritage specialists rely entirely on temporary workers, indicating urgent need for countermeasures.

Regarding this, Provincial Council Member Lee Gye-won stated, "The cause of controversy over 'substandard cultural heritage repairs' raised after completion of cultural heritage restoration projects stems from the absence of specialized personnel in each city and county to oversee and manage repairs, resulting in projects being implemented without proper verification or academic research."

He further added, "Supervision and inspection of province-designated cultural heritage restoration projects conducted once annually or quarterly to prevent poor workmanship in cultural heritage projects, evaluate completed repairs, and select restoration project targets must inevitably be inadequate. To rectify high-cost inefficient cultural heritage administration, urgent amendments to personnel ordinances in each city and county to enable mandatory hiring of professional heritage staff are necessary."