Education reform key to creating jobs: BOK chief

By Kim Jae-won

The chief central banker said Friday that Korea needs to reform its education system so that it will nurture creative thinking, leading graduates to create their own jobs in the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” based on artificial intelligence and big data.

Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol said that the nation’s education system focuses on teaching job skills to students that fail to reflect the changing circumstances now and in the future.

“I agree with experts pointing out that the education system should be changed drastically to effectively prepare students for the future,” said Lee in a breakfast meeting with scholars and businesspeople. “We must quickly brace for a new age as the rate of technological development is continuing to accelerate.”

His comments came as many are concerned about their job security, worrying that rapidly-developing artificial intelligence (AI) will replace them. Earlier this month, Google’s AlphaGo defeated Korean professional go champion Lee Se-dol, stirring debate on how the new technology will shape the world in the future.

The top central banker noted that conditions in the job market may continue to deteriorate, partly due to advances in new technologies, including artificial intelligence that may replace humans even in the most delicate and demanding jobs.

The BOK head also urged additional efforts to create quality jobs, calling it an ultimate goal of economic policies.

“Job security is closely related to the welfare of all major economic players, such as companies, households and people,” said Lee. “We aim to stabilize employment with our economic policies, considering that the ultimate goal of economic growth leads to the prosperity and stability of every person.”

He said this is why many central banks in the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, set stable employment as a top policy goal, considering stable employment as important as economic growth and stable consumer prices.

The statistics office said the nation’s unemployment rate came to a six-year high of 4.9 percent in February, while its youth jobless rate jumped to a record high of 12.5 percent. The number of new jobs also dropped to 223,000 in February, from 339,000 in January.

The BOK chief, however, said the latest readings did not cause an alarm to go off, insisting the rise was partly caused by what he called seasonal factors, such as the great movement of the population around the Lunar New Year holiday and a large number of people applying for the national exam to become public workers.