By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
After an 11-year hiatus, South Korea will restart full operation of an office based in Paris, France to work with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s caused many companies here to shut down. Likewise, the foreign ministry had to close down some of what it considered less important overseas missions.
One of those missions involved an office whose purpose was to work closely with UNESCO.
In 1999, the ministry's office in Paris was closed, and the responsibilities were taken over by the Korean ambassador to France.
This year, the government is reopening the office in a building of its own, and a residing ambassador, Jang Ki-won.
With less than a month left before leaving for Paris, the ambassador's daily life is crammed full meetings and official visits.
Jang starts his role with two important events surrounding his appointment.
One of them was Korea's enrollment in the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, a club of donors. The other is that Korea is recognizing its 60th year as a member of UNESCO this year.
"Over 60 years, we have graduated from being a recipient of development aid and become a donor country," Jang said in an interview with The Korea Times at UNESCO's Korean National Commission in Myeong-dong, Seoul, in mid-January.
"No other country has the same experience as Korea," said the ambassador, adding that because of this, Korea is special donor with something unique to offer developing countries.
He regretted the fact that for so many Koreans, UNESCO's contributions are not well known.
"Korea's development wouldn't have been possible without UNESCO," he said.
The country joined UNESCO on June 14, 1950. Eleven days later, the Korean War broke out. UNESCO established a national commission in 1954, providing printers and textbooks to school children.
The provision lasted from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, and the ambassador was one of the beneficiaries.
"Without textbooks from UNESCO, Korea's zeal for education would have gone nowhere, and today's Korea wouldn't have been possible."
Korea has increased its donations to UNESCO. Between 2008 and 2009, the government contributed more than $6 million, accounting for 2.1 percent of UNESCO's annual budget.
The national commission, together with its headquarters and other national commissions, has a focus on promoting Korean studies and Korean culture both at home and abroad.
UNESCO emerged from the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) in 1942 during World War II, searching for means to repair education systems once the war was over.
In November 1945, 37 countries founded the current UNESCO with the objectives of spreading universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights and fundamental freedom by promoting international collaboration through education, science and culture.
Jang's appointment is a signal that the government has changed its approach to the U.N.'s largest education, culture and science organization.
The post has never previously been given to someone of Jang's background, who has spent his entire career in education.
Jang joined the education ministry in 1980. Over the years, he has climbed the ladder within the ministry, gaining experience in international cooperation, administration and teaching.
He resigned late last year as the head of the ministry's planning department.
Jang also gained overseas experience at UNESCO in the 1990s and the Korean Embassy in the United States in the 2000s.
"It appears that the government came to the decision that the post should be taken by an expert in education. Plus, my personal experience at UNESCO and at an embassy might have helped," Jang said as to how he could have been selected.
"Oegyujanggak," a royal archive of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), will be one of Ambassador Jang's priorities. Some of its contents were illicitly taken by French troops in 1866.
Of 1,000 books, the French took 297 books and put the rest, and the building, up in flames.
Jang said, "It is an international matter as well as a bilateral one between France and Korea," because the parties involved abide not only by bilateral agreements but also by the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property under UNESCO.
Two downsides of the convention are that it isn't legally binding, and it is only applicable to relics that were stolen before 1970, the year it was signed.
"The Egyptian relic could make its way home because it was stolen after 1970," he said, referring to the Egyptian fresco fragment that was returned last December. The incident stirred public resentment in the country.
The Egyptian heritage from the ancient Egyptian tomb of Tetiky was taken out of the country in 2000.
During his visit to Paris, Egyptian President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak made a public demand for it, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had no other choice but to hand it over to Cairo.
The ambassador vowed, "I will try to gather support from third-party countries that are in the same position as Korea, to put additional pressure on France."
Ambassador Jang also promised to let the world know more about Korea's enthusiasm for education.
"I would like to initiate an education ODA (official development aid) program, through which we can share Korea's educational enthusiasm to the developing world," he said.
Furthermore, he said, "I will seek to develop a Korean-style aid mechanism that will be different in its way of approaching recipient countries. As a former recipient, we have a better sense of what recipients have to go through."
In response to criticism that Korea is overly obsessed with education, he answered, "We might the debate pros and cons over this, yet from a developing country's point of view, this is an extremely positive asset."
He also hopes his presence in Paris will contribute to warming inter-Korean relations.
North Korea has sent an ambassador to UNESCO, with whom Jang expects to have a free and casual channel of communication.
For years, UNESCO's Korean national commission has provided North Korea with paper to print textbooks.
Jang said that such a donation would be unthinkable if it were directly from the South Korean government.
"North Korea would never be willing to receive it," he said.
North Korea joined UNESCO in 1997, and has a national commission office in Pyongyang.
UNESCO's second World Conference on Arts Education is also something Jang keenly anticipates. The conference in May will serve as a venue for discussions on arts education. What will make it special will be the presence of UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova.
"All these add up to one thing -- when it comes to culture and education, Korea is already a developed country, providing an example for other countries to follow," he said.