The core logic of the government's grant reform is 'reduction in school-age population' and 'financial efficiency'. The financial authorities view that the current structure of automatic distribution based on a certain percentage (20.79%) of domestic taxes has the side effect of causing the education budget to expand significantly when tax revenues increase. Instead, the government is demonstrating its will to secure flexibility in fiscal management and curb unnecessary spending by introducing a method linked to economic growth rate. This is based on the economic rationality that the budget size should be reasonably adjusted in accordance with changes in population structure, rather than unconditionally increasing the education budget in a tight national budget situation.

In contrast, the voices from frontline schools are quite different. The Headteachers' Council points out that a reduction in the number of students does not necessarily reduce the fixed costs of running a school proportionately. A school is a huge infrastructure that goes beyond the space to teach one student and incurs classroom maintenance costs such as staff labor costs, safety management of old facilities, and air conditioning and heating. Even if the number of students decreases, fixed expenditures remain constant as long as the physical space called school exists. Rather, much more investment is needed than in the past to build AI education infrastructure and establish care and high school credit systems in line with the era of digital transformation. Therefore, there is strong criticism that the plan to reduce education finance based on a simple indicator such as the number of students is a typical idle talk that ignores the reality on the ground.

Another axis of conflict lies in the ‘procedural legitimacy’ that promotes the system. The education community expresses great concern that although it is an important issue that determines the future of national education, the financial authorities are pushing it unilaterally without sufficient communication with the schools or city and provincial offices of education that are actually involved. Although education is not just a simple expenditure but the most valuable investment for future generations, it is difficult to secure policy validity by basing it solely on economic logic. The school principals are calling with one voice to form an official 'educational finance consultation body' in which education stakeholders can actually participate and to find a reasonable alternative that reflects the voices of the field.

Meanwhile, while the grievances of administrators, such as principals' avoidance of promotions, are worsening in schools, there are also growing concerns about the collapse of the educational safety net, including the risk of closure of lifelong education facilities. This shows that the principal's complex responsibilities, such as responding to civil complaints and conflict resolution, have increased beyond simply handling administrative tasks, while actual autonomy is being reduced in a structure centered around the Office of Education. In this context, the reduction in subsidies is likely to act as another pressure that hinders autonomy in schools and improvement in the quality of education. Ultimately, the common opinion in the education world is that if we overlook the real crises in the educational field hidden behind the justification of financial efficiency, the damage will inevitably fall on the students.