About 60 South Korean teachers have been sent to Thailand this year to teach Korean to young students there, the Ministry of Education said Thursday, as demand for Korean language learning is rapidly growing in the Southeast Asian country.The ministry said a total of 58 Korean teachers went to Thailand this year to teach Korean at as many middle and high schools across Thailand until March next year.South Korean teachers pose for the camera before leaving for Thailand. (Ministry of Education)Min

May is “family month” in South Korea, with the Children’s Day and Parents’ Day holidays falling on May 5 and May 8. Taking a cue from the special occasions, major presidential candidates have set out child-, senior- and family-friendly pledges. Front-runner Moon Jae-in of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea has vowed to make children happier, emphasizing the importance of play in a country where private education starts years before entering the school system.  Moon Jae-in (Yonhap)“(Enhancing)

South Korea is investing heavily in education, but its education quality lags far behind rich countries in nurturing talent through skills development, a report showed Sunday. According to the report by Hyundai Research Institute, a private think tank, South Korea spent 5.9 percent of its gross domestic product on education in 2013.  (Yonhap)The spending was 0.7 percentage point higher than the average figure for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Citing a repo

Primary to high schools here without indoor gyms are now required to create indoor spaces for sports in preparation for days when air quality is poor, South Korea’s Ministry of Education said Thursday, as it strengthens efforts to protect young students from worsening air pollution. The ministry has announced a set of anti-air pollution guidelines that include restricting the outdoor activities of students when the concentration of airborne pollutants is high.The capital blanketed in a gray haze

BUSAN -- The education office of South Korea's second-largest city of Busan said Thursday it will abolish multiple-choice objective tests in elementary schools starting next year. Students from an elementary school in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, run from the school grounds as summer vacation starts. (Yonhap)Kim Seok-joon, superintendent of the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education, said it made the unprecedented decision to help boost students' abilities to think and solv

Students from Dwight School Seoul’s graduating class of 2017 have been accepted to over 85 prestigious universities worldwide, including Ivy League schools, the school said Wednesday.(Dwight School Seoul)Thirty-six Dwight graduates applied to universities in the United States, Europe, Asia and Canada. The list of accepted universities includes four Ivy League universities -- Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania -- plus other highly ranking

South Korea will help more local universities provide quality education in the software sector as part of its drive to develop the industry and nurture more talent, the science minister said Monday.  The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning picked eight schools in 2015, six in 2016 and six in 2017 as "software-oriented universities" and invested nearly 2 billion won ($1.75 million) in them annually. (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning)"The ministry will select five more softwar

Dankook University is currently holding a hand-on workshop on “design thinking” inspired by Stanford d.school, the South Korean school said Tuesday. The weeklong program, to be held at the university’s Jukjeon campus in Gyeonggi Province through Saturday, is led by five visiting lecturers from Silicon Valley, renowned as a global hub of design thinking.Students engage in a group discussion during the Design Thinking Boots Camp at Dankook University’s campus in Jukjeon, Gyeonggi Province, Monday.

Shim Jae-chul, 57, had to find a new way to make a living when he lost his job three years ago. To restart his career, Shim chose to take online courses to obtain an electrician’s certificate. “I had to find a new job to support my family. However, people who are old like me have problems learning as quickly as young people,” Shim said. “Online courses let me review materials repeatedly. I can even slow down the speed (of the lectures), which is great!” The Ministry of Education and National Ins

Harry Smith has seized every opportunity to learn during his 50-year career. After he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, he took to Coursera, a massive open online course platform, to keep learning and taking courses from top-rated universities for the first time in his life. “I want to learn new things because that’s what brings joy to my life,” he said in a contribution article on Coursera.  Harry Smith, a student on Massive Open Online Course platform Coursera, talks about his learning experie

That life is a never-ending learning process is a hackneyed idea, but it carries with it the idea that learning is down to the individual.Once compulsory education is over, it is completely up to them to decide on what and how to educate themselves.Korea’s academic pressures are notorious. Starting from an early age, students struggle to meet the expectations of their parents and teachers. If they hit the end goal of getting in to a good university and landing a reputable job, they often conside

The education ministry said Thursday it will reinforce Korean language and vocational training for thousands of young North Korean defectors studying in local schools.A total of 2,517 North Korean defectors were registered with elementary, middle and high schools nationwide as of April last year, according to the Ministry of Education. The number has increased dramatically from 1,417 tallied in 2010. Hangyeore Middle and High School, a government-funded secondary school for North Korean defector

The Korean Education Center, a Ministry of Education-affiliated agency in charge of teaching Korean to overseas Koreans and foreigners, has opened its 40th offshore branch in Ukraine, the ministry said Friday.Ukraine's Korean Education Center opened in the East European country's capital Kiev in a ceremony attended by education officials from both countries Friday, the ministry said.This undated file photo shows a Korean language class under way at the Korean Education Center in Vladivostok, Rus

A district court on Friday temporarily banned a local high school from using a controversial state-authored history textbook. The court upheld an injunction request filed by five parents who accused the school authorities of breaking rules in their decision to adopt the textbook. Liberals criticize the state-issued book for its allegedly biased interpretation of events in the nation's modern history. Students and parents hold up signs at Munmyeong High School in Gyeongsan on March 2, to demand t

Monthly expenditures on private education here reached an all-time high last year amid a steady drop in the number of students, a government survey showed Tuesday.Monthly spending on private education averaged 256,000 won ($224) per child in 2016, up 4.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the annual survey by the Ministry of Education and Statistics Korea.It marked the largest monthly amount since 2007 when the government started to compile such data.The poll was conducted on 43,000 paren