The Korea Herald

NGO urges Korea to revise sex education guidelines

May 4, 2015

South Korea should revise its sex education guidelines for schools to include lessons about homosexuality and other sexual minorities, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.The Education Ministry’s sex education guidelines ― distributed to schools across the country in March ― does not include any descriptions about homosexuals because it said “homosexuality is not common in terms of sexual orientation.” It was a step back from the ministry’s original position of banning any education related to homos
Direct election of education chiefs disputed

Apr 28, 2015

Calls are growing to repeal the system of direct elections for education superintendents, after Seoul’s education chief was found guilty last week of defaming his opponent during the 2014 election.Choi Hi-yeon, the head of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, was fined 5 million won ($4,700) Friday for spreading a false rumor about the opposing candidate Koh Seung-duk to damage his chances in the election. He retweeted a claim by a local reporter that Koh and his children had a U.S. green
Top Seoul educator challenges constitutionality of slander charges

Apr 28, 2015

Seoul's top educator said Tuesday he will soon go to the Constitutional Court to fight the slander charges leveled against him during last year's election campaign, claiming freedom of speech. Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, is standing trial in appellate court on charges that he spread false rumors about his conservative rival ahead of last year's election. If the Supreme Court convicts him, Cho will have to give up his post and return some 3 billion wo
Conviction threatens Seoul education chief

Apr 24, 2015

Major projects being pushed by progressive top educator Cho Hi-yeon faces hurdles as he could be forced to step down from his post after a local court found him guilty of running a smear campaign against his rival candidate last year.The Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday evening fined Cho, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, 5 million won ($4,600) for spreading false rumors against his conservative rival Koh Seung-duk during his campaign.Under current election l
Young generation learns new meaning of unification

Apr 23, 2015

State institute focuses field studies on need for one Korea
Balancing skills, responsibility for future leaders

Apr 20, 2015

Nyenrode Business Universiteit seeks to assist budding entrepreneurs via practical learning
Obama says teachers in S. Korea paid as much as doctors

Apr 17, 2015

U.S. President Barack Obama has praised South Korea's education system again, saying teachers in Korea are paid as much as doctors and engineers. "My sister was a teacher, and so I know how little she got paid. It's hard to support a family. And there are a lot of young people who are really talented who want to go into teaching," Obama said in a town hall meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday. "In places like Korea and Finland, where the education system is really doing well, tea
Half-price college tuition is hardly complete

Apr 14, 2015

The Education Ministry and Rep. Kim Sang-min of the ruling Saenuri Party held a forum on Tuesday on the Park Geun-hye administration’s “half-price” college tuition policy. In a self-styled pat on the back, they deemed it a “mission accomplished” and talked about future challenges. Their “celebration,” however, seemed to leave many college students perplexed. They asked how the government could deem their job complete when actual tuition costs remain largely unchanged, let alone cut in half as pr
Industries pick top technology universities

Apr 9, 2015

The Education Ministry on Thursday announced the top-ranking local universities with respect to their compatibility with the corporate sector. The list was released as part of the government’s efforts to establish a closer link between higher education and businesses.Inha University was picked as the most notable school, garnering “excellent” ratings in all but the biomedical equipment category. It was the only recipient of the top rank in the energy category.Other universities that received the
Teaching aids on Japan's wartime sex slavery due

Apr 8, 2015

The government said Wednesday it will soon release teaching aids for school children on Japan's wartime sex slavery. The move is aimed at properly dealing with the Japanese government's attempt to whitewash its wartime misdeeds and help Korean students better understand the issue of the former sex slaves, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Education Ministry said. Historians estimate more than 200,000 Korean and other Asian women were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese
Elite school protests status downgrade

Apr 6, 2015

Parents of students from a special purpose school held a protest Monday, denouncing Seoul education authorities’ recent announcement that its status may be stripped due to poor performance.Last Thursday, the Seoul Education Office of Education said this year’s general assessment on 13 special-purpose middle and high schools found that Seoul Foreign Language High School and Younghoon International Middle School failed to meet the requirements necessary for redesignation as de facto elite schools.
Court backs state order to alter history textbooks

Apr 2, 2015

A Seoul court ruled Thursday in favor of the government’s 2013 decision to revise all high school Korean history textbooks.“(The revision orders) are aimed at correcting or getting rid of expressions that are susceptible to misinterpretation, and to deliver correct information to students via an exact description of historical events,” the Seoul Administrative Court said in its ruling. In the fall of 2013, the Education Ministry ordered all eight local publishers to revise descriptions that they
Intercultural understanding key to resolving conflicts

Mar 30, 2015

With the fall of the iron curtain followed by technological development, the world has become a more connected place than ever before.But as the world strode through the process of “globalization,” the clashes between people with different ideas, cultures and beliefs also intensified.Jung Eun-hee, founder and chairperson of a New York-based virtual school, said the key to resolving conflicts among different cultures lies in better understanding each other. The process, she added, begins with edu
30 Korean universities provide multicultural studies programs

Mar 25, 2015

A total of 30 universities in South Korea currently offer diverse undergraduate and graduate programs which focus on nurturing multicultural specialists, according to recent figures from the Ministry of Justice.Nine universities including Sun Moon University, Chongshin University and Konyang Cyber University operate departments aimed at fostering experts specializing in multicultural social work and education, while 21 others offer related Masters and Ph.D. programs, the ministry said Tuesday.St
Court rules against foreign professor for mocking students

Mar 22, 2015

A Seoul court on Sunday ruled in favor of a university’s decision not to renew the contract of a foreign professor, after she was found to have ridiculed her students’ English essays on social media.The Seoul Administrative Court recognized Ewha Womans University’s refusal to rehire its former employee last year as legal, stating that “the professor failed to maintain proper conduct as an educator.”In September 2013, the former professor posted several remarks on her Facebook mocking grammatical