South Korea on Wednesday advocated its education model and its contribution to the country’s economic success in the past decades at the World Education Forum in Songdo, Incheon.

The WEF 2015, bringing together some 1,500 education officials from across the world, evaluated the U.N.-led “Education for All” movement while working to set new global education goals for the next 15 years. Participants of the event, including President Park Geun-hye who delivered a speech at the opening ceremony Tuesday, have emphasized that education is the backbone of a country’s development.

On the second day of the forum, Korea Education Development Institute chief Baek Sun-geun presented why the Korean model was successful in its economic growth and what challenges lie ahead.

The Korean War (1950-53) tore the Korean Peninsula into two, making both Koreas among the poorest countries in the world. But some 60 years later, South Korea is the fourth-biggest economy in Asia.

Baek said that competent teachers, the government’s contribution to train them and a nationwide consensus on the importance of education led to the country’s high education fever.

“Education was recognized as one of the most basic and fundamental rights, while being seen as the most proper way to improve one’s social and economic status. Such a view on education led to voluntary participation and enthusiasm of individuals (to educate themselves),” Baek said.

He added that South Korea was able to access the type of skills that society needed as it progressed through stages of industrialization, and focus its effort on creating an education model that fosters such skills.

The country focused on quantitative growth in the early stages of development, working to increase the number of higher education institutes and the percentage of students attending college, according to the presentation. Since the late 1990s, however, the country has been working to improve the quality of tertiary education.

Currently, Korea is carrying out a nationwide college evaluation for higher education reform.

The point now, Baek said, is to foster creativity in students while providing quality education for all learners. “The society now calls for creators, not followers.”

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)