Male teachers at a Seoul-based high school were recently accused of sexually harassing their female colleagues and students for more than a year, leading to severe criticism of the city education office for possibly neglecting or mishandling the situation.The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Thursday it is conducting a special investigation on five teachers at a public school in Seodaemun-gu, central Seoul, over a series of sexual harassment cases involving over a hundred victims. The

Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea will visit South America this week on a trip aimed at boosting bilateral cooperation in the education sector, the ministry said Sunday.Hwang, who doubles as deputy prime minister for social affairs, is scheduled to depart later Sunday for a week-long trip through Brazil, Peru and Colombia.His visit is a follow-up to President Park Geun-hye's four-nation tour of South America in April, which included a stop in Chile."Deputy Prime Minister Hwang's South America vis

U.S. President Barack Obama said again that teachers in South Korea are paid as much as doctors, a notion that is far from reality and which drew a refutation from a Korean teachers' association when he made a similar remark three months ago.Obama made the latest remark Wednesday while visiting a high school in Oklahoma to launch his "ConnectHome" initiative aimed at expanding high-speed broadband Internet connection to more families across the country, especially for low-income households."As p

The Education Ministry on Tuesday rolled out a series of measures to increase “character building education” for students, some seven months after it adopted the initiative to incorporate character evaluations into public education.It included mandating the government to come up with a comprehensive plan for character-building education every five years and forming an advisory committee, requiring education offices to set up yearly plans for the same purpose, and funding programs to foster what

Korea University of Technology and Education is looking to further contribute to the practical application of science and technology by expanding its Professional Science Master programs, officials said Wednesday.The KOREATECH PSM aims to train professionals that would “commercialize science and lead the development of science-intensive industries.”The PSM movement was initiated in the United States in 1997, in response to calls to integrate practical and science and technological knowledge. The

South Korea’s Education Ministry is set to create a permanent response team to deal with outbreaks of infectious diseases within schools, officials said Wednesday, a decision sparked by the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome crisis.“As the ministry’s gesture to show that it will protect schools from not just MERS but all contagious diseases, we will create a permanent task force that will be operated from July,” said Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea. A team of five ministry officials will b

The Education Ministry is pushing to allow universities and colleges to create departments or majors consisting of only foreign students, officials said Tuesday, as part of its plan to attract 200,000 students from outside South Korea by 2023.Creation of specialized departments in fields such as shipping, automobile and information technology-related majors -- in which Korea shows high competency -- will be supported by the ministry.The ministry is seeking to revise the higher education law rela

The Korean National Commission for UNESCO on Tuesday opened an education institute in Seoul to teach children about peace, human rights and understanding of different cultures.The Korea UNESCO Global Citizenship School encompasses the organization’s 60-plus years of efforts on global citizenship education, a U.N. education initiative that aims to foster global citizens by instilling students with universal values including peace, human rights, diversity, gender equality and sustainable developme

South Korea’s Education Ministry reiterated last week its intention to continue curbs tuition fees for universities and colleges, despite calls by local universities to allow tuition hikes.As part of President Park Geun-hye’s “half-price tuition” policy, the ministry has been pressuring universities to refrain from raising tuition fees. Earlier this year, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea visited Ehwa Womans University ― the first major institute to raise the tuition to the government-permitted l