South Korea ranked second at an international youth mathematics competition held in Colombia earlier this month, Seoul’s Science Ministry said Monday.South Korea claimed five medals, including four gold medals, at the International Mathematical Olympiad held in Santa Marta, Colombia from July 18 to 28, and finished in second place out of 97 countries, according to the ministry.Last year, South Korea clinched the top spot. This year also marks a sharp improvement from the 13th place in 2011, acco

When I was little, I had a great opportunity to live in the U.S. with my family for almost two years, which is when I first learned English and made foreign friends. I attended ESL or English as a second language classes at school with other international students whose parents were graduate students there like mine. During the first few days, the most difficult flash card to remember was “bread and butter” because, for me, “bread,” “and” and “butter” were three “unassociated” words instead of o

College costs are driving decisions about which schools to attend, what to study and even where to live, according to a report from loan giant Sallie Mae.Parents no longer foot the largest portion of the bill, according to the lender‘s annual survey. That role goes to grants and scholarships, with student loans coming in third.While the recession has largely passed, economic worries have not and many families are making college choices driven by fears of tuition hikes and job losses, according t

The Education Ministry said Monday it plans to increase the number of female principals and vice principals at public schools by 2017, it announced on Monday.As of May, women accounted for only 5,188 of the 19,085 principals and vice principals in public schools across the country. The ministry said it would raise the number by 1,100 by 2017.Exactly half of Korea’s 50 million people are women, according to recent government figures.(596story@heraldcorp.com)

Seoul National University is mulling over installing a plagiarism detection program amid a series of scandals involving several professors.There are several detection programs, such as Turnitin, that check for duplication of content by comparing submitted papers and theses through an online database.The school announced on Sunday that it was looking to purchase plagiarism-tracking software and to start using it from next year.All master’s and doctoral degree theses as well as professors’ publica

The Educational Testing Service, the U.S.-based firm that administers TOEFL and TOEIC tests, announced on Monday that it awarded $72,000 to students in Korea through its annual TOEFL Scholarship program.ETS said that it awarded 24 Korean students each with a $3,000 scholarship to fund their undergraduate or graduate studies overseas.Since the inception of the ETS scholarship program, the organization has awarded $560,000 to Korean TOEFL and TOEIC test takers to support undergraduate or graduate

The Education Ministry has instructed schools nationwide to strengthen education on the 1950-53 Korean War, municipal and provincial education offices said Wednesday.The move follows controversy over students’ knowledge of history, as a recent survey by the Ministry of Security and Public Administration found that 53 percent of 1,000 students failed to answer what year the war broke out.In a separate survey of 506 high school students nationwide by the local daily Seoul Shinmun, seven out of 10

Fourteen percent of South Korean primary and secondary school students are addicted to smartphones, more than twice their Internet addiction rate, a poll showed Wednesday.According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, 240,000 or 14 percent of the 1.7 million fourth-grade elementary school students and first-grade students of both middle and high schools polled across the country, are addicted to smartphones.The figure of 240,000 was 2.3 times more than the 105,0