President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday the success of her trademark “creative economy” initiative hangs on establishing a new education model that encourages students to think creatively, in a departure from the conventional ones focused on rote memorization of facts. “Students suffer from the excessive ‘education fever’ and the immense stress of having to go to a high-ranking school, and are deprived of the joy of learning,” Park said during the symposium “Achieving HOPE (Happiness of People thro

President Park Geun-hye vowed Tuesday to realize an education system that stresses creativity and goes beyond traditional paradigms, a view in line with her "creative economy" vision.  "Our education should be the source of creative ideas that sparks innovation," Park said in a speech at an education symposium held jointly by South Korean education institutes and the World Bank.   She said South Korea is making efforts to ensure students can develop their creative potential, noting the future of

TV lectures on Korea’s college entrance exam aired on a state-run education channel did little to improve students’ scores and curb sky-high private education costs, a study showed Monday.The government-backed EBS Suneung programs were implemented in 2010 in a bid to reduce the overall expenditure on private education. The Education Ministry’s goal was to enable students to prepare for the crucial November exam via EBS lectures alone as these would have a bearing on roughly 70 percent of the tes

South Korea’s Education Ministry said Friday it would not challenge the recent ruling on a flawed question on the college entrance exam last year and would take measures to adjust the affected students’ scores, a move that is likely to have an impact on thousands of students’ college admission results.Everyone who took the world geography test that contained the cited question will get credit for it, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea said in an emergency briefing at the Government Complex in Sejo

Six out of 14 elite high schools in Seoul metropolitan city will be stripped of their privileges for improperly implementing their curriculum, the Seoul educational office said Friday.The office, however, withheld a decision on two other schools after they vowed to give up their right to select students based on their test scores.The phase-out of private high schools with the right to autonomously run their curriculum was a key election pledge by Seoul education chief Cho Hi-yeon in the June loc

Seven of eight autonomous private high schools that did not pass the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s recent quality test have said they are willing to make improvements, a significant retreat from their initial stance that the SMOE evaluation was illegitimate. Earlier this week, the SMOE urged the schools to submit plans to address the problems pointed out during the September evaluation. The eight schools that failed to pass were to be revoked of all their privileges as autonomous scho

South Korea’s Education Ministry on Tuesday said a series of events including lectures and forums will be held next week under the title “2014 Humanities Week” as part of efforts to promote the humanities among the public.A total of 46 organizations including universities, government bodies and civic groups will partake in the annual event, cohosted by the ministry and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The events will kick off on Oct. 27 and will conclude on Nov. 2The opening ceremony w

Opposition lawmakers accused a Samsung-funded high school of operating what he called an “unfair” admissions program during a parliamentary audit on Tuesday, dredging up a months-old dispute from earlier this year.Chung Nam Samsung Academy in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, appears to be infringing upon the people’s constitutional right to receive education by allocating over 70 percent of student openings to children of Samsung Group employees, said Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon of the main opposition N

Korea will implement an absolute grading system for the English section of the state-run college entrance exam, the Education Ministry said Monday at its first public hearing on the new policy.Experts gathered to discuss how the new grading system can contribute to the ministry’s goal of reducing what President Park Geun-hye has described as “excessive English education.” The hearing was cohosted by the ministry and the state-run Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, which makes the exa