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SFS interim headmaster
Nancy Price |
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Seoul Foreign School, the leading international school in the country, has expressed skepticism over the Seoul city government's plan to build more international schools.
Interim Headmaster Nancy Price, who took over last month, said the size of the land the city government is offering is not big enough to attract international operators.
In an interview with The Korea Times last week, she said the school has been asked to bid for an international school and was interested in setting one up in Sangam-dong, a district 10 minutes away from the school.
``The size of that land is too small for a school, not big enough for our needs, which is maybe the reason why international schools have not accepted the offer,'' she said.
The city government is planning to build three more international schools to attract foreign investment and will offer three locations at cheap prices; 16,077 square meters in Gaepo-dong, which is the site of the Japanese school; 10,548 square meters in Banpo-dong; and 23,506 square meters in Sangam-dong.
The Japanese school is scheduled to move to Sangam-dong and will occupy 13,532 square meters of the site. The remainder will be offered to a new international school.
The city says it will invite world-class schools to set up campuses despite pessimism from existing international schools over the plan.
Seoul Foreign, however, said its board is still open to considering and exploring the establishment of another international school. ``I suppose there's always the possibility of things just depending on the board, the government and whatever happens,'' Price said.
Located in Yonhui-dong, western Seoul, the school has nearly 1,500 students in four divisions. The elementary school division is for preschool through fifth grade; the British school division covers preschool through middle school under the British curriculum; the middle school division is for grades six through eight; and the high school division covers grades nine through twelve and offers the full International Baccalaureate Diploma for interested juniors and seniors.
In 2006, the British division had to cancel a move to the state-funded Yongsan International School. The Korean Foreign Schools Foundation, a government-designated Korean agency to build an international school and select its operator, abruptly changed the operator from the British school to International Christian School.
Seoul Foreign spent about $1 million on the move.
In spite of the sore memory, Price thanked the Korean government's respect for the autonomy of her school's curriculum and overall operations. ``While we continue to be independent operators of our school, we feel that government support in helping to provide land or facilities would be valued by both existing and future international schools. In the end, government support for viable international schools will help sustain foreign direct investors in Korea,'' she said.
She categorized foreign schools here and overseas into two types. One is the true international school that serves children of expatriates. ``This is the type of school which our school has always been, and will remain. Such schools provide curriculum, pedagogy and a general learning environment similar to those in the student's home country, and instruction is given by native speakers in the student's mother tongue,'' she said.
The other type is not an international school. ``Although such schools use a foreign language, often English or French, as the language of instruction, they are not geared toward serving the expatriate population,'' she said. ``These schools typically enroll local students whose parents wish them to experience and gain fluency in the language, curriculum and culture of another country.''
Price frowns on the growing number of Korean children leaving the country for study, saying the second type of foreign school could help negate this trend.
``I experienced the phenomenon of Korean students leaving home at a young age while a headmaster in the United States,'' she said.
``Though such a practice may be helpful to the student in learning more about the culture and gaining fluency in the English language, I found it is often very difficult for those children to be away from their homes for so many years, especially when young and still needing the physical presence, support and love of parents and their own culture.''
A Korean ''foreign'' school serving Korean students in a foreign language, curriculum and teachers could help prevent separating students from their parents, she said.
Graduating from Southwest Baptist University with a bachelor's in elementary education in 1976, Price received a master's in curriculum personalization from California State University-Northridge. She also earned her doctorate from Griffith University of Australia in 2006 in strategic teaching and learning.
Price has worked as an educator for 32 years, 20 as the head of The Bear Creek School in Redmond, Washington, an independent school she founded in 1988. She will head Seoul Foreign through July next year.
kswho@koreatimes.co.kr
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