Over 50 percent of population should be vaccinated before reopening schools at full capacity, expert says

The education ministry is looking at fully resuming in-person classes in the fall, an official said Wednesday, as online classes have been blamed for widening learning gaps between children. Currently, schools follow the government's COVID-19 guidelines in determining how many students are allowed to learn in-person while the rest study remotely. The proportions range from up to two-thirds capacity to online only, depending on the social distancing level in place. The official, who spoke on th

Widening education gap, declining academic performance among teachers’ concerns

The Korea International School held this year’s Human Rights Week via Zoom on April 19 with middle and high school students and faculty members, featuring guest speakers whose own experiences illustrate the importance of knowing and responding to current social issues. HRW is organized by the KIS Human Rights Initiative, a group of 13 students. With the theme of “Removing the Mask on Social Pandemics,” HRW centered its daily sessions on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. T

The process of learning a language can be more effective when you have a strong motivation, which is why the company behind BTS recently released the latest version of its Korean learning kit involving the K-pop act's miniature characters for global fans. "Learn! Korean with TinyTAN," is a follow-up series to Hybe Edu's "Learn! Korean with BTS" released last year. The company said the new version is tailored to fans who are newly learning the language, focusing on the basic

A Soongsil University team has been selected for a government-funded project developing information technology security, the university said Wednesday. The team, led by professor Choi Dae-seon of Soongsil University’s Department of Software, will receive 3.75 billion won ($3.35 million) over the course of six years in a program sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Institute for Information and Communications. The team will focus on analyzing security threats against edge

Education Ministry has little in the pipeline to address the problem

Korea International School, Jeju Campus, has achieved a high level of excellence in its 10th year with the vast majority of its senior students earning admission to prestigious global universities. The school announced Wednesday that students from this year’s graduating class -- KIS Jeju’s sixth -- had been admitted to top-tier universities in the United States, including Ivy League schools such as Columbia University and Cornell University, as well as Johns Hopkins University, Wash

South Korea’s top science and technology institution is seeking to strengthen its globalization efforts and provide unique research opportunities in hopes of becoming one of the top 10 universities in the world within the next 20 years. Lee Kwang-hyung, president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, said in a press briefing Thursday that the school will focus on nurturing creative scholars, have them engage in novel research fields and thereby improve the competitive

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Tuesday that it would provide educational materials for schools in the city on the violence of the military government in Myanmar and how it is oppressing the country’s people. The package, consisting of PowerPoint slides, a workbook and a guidebook for teachers, comes in two versions depending on grade level. To make it accessible to multicultural students who aren’t fluent in Korean, the office said, the package will also be availabl

Sogang University, one of Seoul’s elite schools, has come under fire for forcing students living in dormitories to sign a pledge that would hold them both financially and legally responsible when they are infected with COVID-19 from visiting high-risk areas. According to the school’s online student community, two dormitories started requiring its residents to sign the “agreement” after the first infection case was confirmed in one of the buildings on March 25. “I

More in-school days needed to tackle growing achievement gap, education minister says

Admissions for the KDI School of Public Policy and Management’s 2021 fall semester will start April 1 for both international and domestic applicants. Online applications can be submitted from April 1 at 9 a.m. until April 19 at 6 p.m. (Korean time). Affiliated with the Korea Development Institute, Korea’s No. 1 think tank, the KDI School of Public Policy and Management opened in March 1998. Since then it has remained unrivaled in teaching and research on development and public polic

Korea-Russia Arts and Culture Society President Lee Sang Kyun was awarded the Pushkin Medal from the Russian government for his role in strengthening ties between Seoul and Moscow. During the opening ceremony for the Year of Mutual Exchange between South Korea and Russia held Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov presented the award to Lee, chairman of the board at Seoul Cyber University, in place of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Korea-Russia Arts and Culture Society has pl

Despite 9.7 billion won investment, technical problems interfere with classes