New Education Needed for Multi-Ethnic Society
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The need for multi-cultural education is growing with the increasing number of interracial marriages in Korea. According to the Korea National Statistical Office, Korea saw a total of 43,121 international marriages last year, or 13.6 percent of the total and nearly a 2-percentage point increase from the 11.9 percent in 2006.
Accordingly, the number of interracial children has been increasing at schools across the country from 6,121 in 2005 to 7,998 in 2006 and further to 13,445 in 2007. However, it is very hard for these children to adapt themselves to Korea where homogeneous tradition has long been dominant.
``Korea lacks education programs in the era of globalization. Many people emphasize that we need to find Korea from the view of the world. But I want to say we should first find the world in Korea,'' said Suh Chong-nam, Deputy Director of the Center for Gyeonggi Multi-Cultural Education.
Established in Gyeonggi Province, last July, the center is one of 16 education institutes run by the Education Ministry for interracial families, migrant laborers and other foreign nationals.
The centers also train teachers as well as conduct research and studies on multicultural education. In addition, they provide counseling and mentoring programs for not only for interracial families but migrant laborers.
``First, teachers at schools need to learn how to deal with mixed-race children. Still many children from interracial families are suffering from discrimination and prejudice,'' Suh told The Korea Times in an interview.
According to a report by Seoul National University, more than 20 percent of mixed-race children have been bullied and among them, nearly 34 percent experienced ostracism owing to a fact that their mothers were foreigners.
About 20 percent of alienated children from interracial families were bullied due to the fact that they could not communicate well with others, while 16 percent of them experienced unfair treatment for no particular reason. These were followed by different attitude and behavior at 13.4 percent and different appearance at 5 percent.
Currently, university professors and schoolteachers participate in the education programs as lecturers. But Korea doesn't yet have specialized trainers for multicultural education, Suh said.
``Still we don't have systematical programs for multicultural education. I hope the government and regional offices will invest more money in this study field,'' she said. ``Then we can bring out more practical programs for those who need that kind of education.''
``I hope these centers can care for foreign students, U.S. soldiers and their families so that they can eventually cover all foreign nationals here in Korea.''
About 630,000 foreign workers are legally registered here with their 25,488 children. According to the Education Ministry, about 10 percent of children from multicultural households don't go on to elementary school or gave up their studies, while 20 percent of them, who were required to attend middle schools did so.
About 25 percent of children of multicultural families resided in Gyeonggi Province followed by 11 percent, 9.6 percent and 8.5 percent of them staying in Seoul, North Jeolla and South Jeolla provinces, respectively.