Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Education ministry prepares for post-COVID era
Yoo Eun-hae, deputy prime minister and minister of education, checks an online class system in this April 7 photo, after the ministry announced plans to start the new school year in stages that month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
The COVID-19 pandemic has given the country an opportunity to refocus on education, and the consequences of the outbreak will help the government plan for the future with the massive shift away from learning and teaching in traditional settings with physical interactions as well as classroom organization, according to the Ministry of Education.
The ministry announced a policy package with 10 priorities to shape education for the post-coronavirus world. The 10 include facilitating innovation in teaching and learning, revising the national curriculum by incorporating the values of decentralized and autonomous education at the local level, a new teacher management system and a stronger safety net.
In addition, the ministry will also prepare for the full-scale implementation of online classes by sharing growth between universities and regions through collaboration. It will encourage cooperation between universities and local communities for human capacity-building, and improving the quality of vocational training at higher education institutions.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic is giving opportunities to change our educational environment, we must not miss the momentum for this change,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae during a recent press briefing at the Government Complex in Sejong.
Yoo said all sectors of the “social economy” have been progressing rapidly, following the Fourth Industrial Revolution and rapid changes in the population structure.
“This uncertainty is intensifying as a result of such rapid changes and we believe it is time to reform education with a set of guiding principles from the long-term perspective,” she said.
Therefore, the education ministry emphasized that the government should prepare a system for training talented students with creativity and collaboration skills that can create new knowledge and values rather than the current cramming education. Providing opportunities in education for children is more important as a global economic recession will even weaken mobility between classes, and widen the educational gap.
Kim Moon-hee, a policy planning officer at the education ministry, said, "There is a serious need to design future education based on changes we have observed during the pandemic.”
“We were reminded of the importance of schools as a community hub, created and reinforced by the strong bonds of its stakeholders,” Kim said.
To that end, the ministry has spoken with many experts as well as educators, and created a Future Education Committee, which was launched in April to set up a Korean-style remote education policy advisory group.
Yoo said the details of the ministry's top 10 policy priorities will be announced by end of the year after collecting opinions from the concerned parties in education, including teachers, students and parents, and experts.
“It is important to attain inclusion in education, which can be achieved by providing a universal level of education to all students without discrimination. Those who need assistance should be fully supported to meet their individual needs,” Yoo said.