By Kim Hyun-bin
The Korea Foundation announced Friday it will launch the third phase of its Global e-School project, through which local universities provide online Korean courses to foreign students abroad.
The state-run public diplomacy agency started the real-time video education program in 2011 to make up for a shortage of teachers and to adapt to the surging demand of overseas students wanting to major in Korean studies.
Nine universities will take part in the third phase that is scheduled to run through 2021.
The universities are Seoul National, Korea, Sungkyunkwan, Ewha Woman's, Sookmyung Women's, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Hanyang, Chungang and Kyunghee.
This year, 60 universities in 21 countries will open 108 Korean studies classes with the help of the Korean schools, according to the Korea Foundation.
Among them are Korean Businesses and Management, which Korea University will provide to Peking University; Korean e-Government and Public Administration that Sungkyunkwan University will offer to Thailand's Chiang Mai University; Korean Market Economy and Consumers from Sookmyung University to Vietnam's Hanoi University; and Korean Movies and Their Socio-cultural Context from Hanyang University to Romania's University of Bucharest.
“The Global e-School has contributed in expanding the overseas Korean studies program from humanities and language to politics, society and the economy,” said Lee Si-hyung, head of Korea Foundation.
“The third phase aims to maintain high quality lectures and provide courses to other countries and facilities that have yet to join the program.”
The foundation plans to provide numerous e-School fellowships including special lectures from Korean professors visiting universities abroad, and inviting foreign students to take summer classes at designated universities in Korea.
The popularity of the online classes has soared in recent years starting from 739 students at 19 facilities in 12 countries in 2011 to 4,322 at 101 schools in 35 nations by 2016.