By Kim Bo-eun
Seoul National University's Unification Education Research Center is opening a school with students and teachers from the North and South.
The three-month program, where students attending their own schools come alternate Saturdays, starts this week.
Elementary and middle-school students will take ethics, Korean, math, science, arts and physical education classes.
There will be 12 students each from the North and South in one class for fifth and sixth-graders and another for second and third-year middle-school students.
Two teachers each from the North and South will be the homeroom teachers.
The school also will offer mentoring sessions with Seoul National University students.
The school is meant to provide a glimpse life in which the Koreas are unified and prepare for it.
North Korean defectors now either go to alternative schools for such students or are placed in regular schools in the South.
But they experience difficulties. The former are limited when it comes to interaction with South Korean students and the latter have trouble adjusting to studies and school life.