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Seoul steps up school support for immigrant youth
Immigrant youth attend a Korean language class at Seoul Global Youth Education Center in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul, in this undated file photo. Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government
By Park Ung
Seoul will strengthen educational and emotional support for immigrant youth with a range of expanded programs to facilitate their integration into school life.
Immigrant youth are those who enter Korea between ages 9 and 24 after being born and raised abroad, including children of multicultural families, overseas Koreans and those born abroad to North Korean defectors who married foreign nationals.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday the expanded programs are available at the Seoul Global Youth Education Center in Yeongdeungpo District, where key programs include Korean language classes on weekday afternoons and weekends.
To accommodate students' schedules, the center has expanded its class hours to run weekdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For immigrant youth newly enrolled in university and struggling with academic language and peer relationships, the center offers tailored mentoring and multilingual peer counseling led by fellow immigrant youth who majored in psychology.
To further expand its reach, the center signed agreements in February with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Seoul Nambu District Office of Education to expand programs that build Korean language proficiency among youth not yet enrolled in school, bilingual counseling and parent workshops.
By targeting the early stages of academic and social adjustment, the center nearly doubled its cumulative users last year, from 20,210 to 39,599.
“Immigrant youth are a vital human resource who will lead our society into the future, at a time when the school-age population is shrinking,” said Park Eun-sook, head of the city's multicultural affairs division. “We will do our utmost to support them across education, career development and emotional well-being so they can settle and grow here, overcoming barriers of language and culture.”