Tag: Education

South Korea Announces Plan to Begin Returning Kids to School on May 13th

This month South Korean children will be heading back to school as early as May 13th:

A soldier disinfects a desk at an elementary school in the southern city of Daegu on May 1, 2020. (Yonhap)

South Korea on Monday announced plans to reopen schools starting next week, more than two months after schools were closed in a precautionary measure against the new coronavirus that has infected more than 10,000 here.

“Starting on May 20, which is two weeks after key holidays in May, we will push to (reopen schools) in a phased and sequential process,” Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said at a press briefing.

Under the plan, high school seniors will return to school on May 13, while other grades will return to school gradually in the following weeks.

Students in grade 2 of high school, grade 3 of middle school and grades 1 and 2 in elementary schools will return on May 20, while those in grade 1 of high school, grade 2 of middle school and grades 3 and 4 in elementary schools will go back on May 27. Students in grade 1 of middle school and grades 5 and 6 in elementary school will return on June 1.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korean Schools Begin Online Instruction this Week

Online classes for South Korean students began this week:

Twin sisters Park Ha-neul and Park Ga-eul, who are both seniors at middle schools, take online classes at their home in the western Seoul ward of Yangcheon on April 9, 2020. (Yonhap)

The government had postponed the new school year, which usually starts in March, by five weeks to Monday. But the plan changed as unexpected cluster infections broke out in various parts of the country.

Last week, the government announced plans to first resume online classes for seniors at middle and high schools before expanding the remote learning program to other grades. 

Grades one and two at middle schools and high schools, as well as grades four to six at elementary schools, will begin the new semester next Thursday. Grades one to three at elementary schools will start taking online classes from April 20. The national college entrance exam has been pushed back by two weeks to Dec. 3. 

Classes at kindergartens and child care centers have been indefinitely postponed.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korea to Restart Schools on April 9th Online

It seems this was bound to happen:

 South Korea will begin the new school year with online classes on April 9 following repeated delays due to the novel coronavirus, the prime minister said Tuesday.

The unprecedented move to introduce online classes will be applied step by step at schools, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said, without elaborating.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korea Delays School Terms Across the Country Until March 9th to Help Prevent Coronavirus Spread

It is interesting that the Korean government is delaying the school term across the country, but are still allowing in 70,000 Chinese college students:

Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae speaks at a government press briefing on the new coronavirus in Seoul on Feb. 23, 2020. (Yonhap)

South Korea said Sunday it will postpone the new school year, set to start next month, as part of efforts to tackle the new coronavirus after the number of patients spiked to more than 600.

“To prevent the spread of infection, and for the safety of students and school faculty, the education ministry will postpone the first day of the 2020 school year at kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools across the country by a week,” Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said in a government press briefing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

High School on Yongsan Garrison to Keep “American” In Its Name

I agree that the word “American” should be kept in the name of the school to distinguish it from other international schools in South Korea:

After a public outcry, the word “American” was restored to the name of the soon-to-be-consolidated middle/high school at the Army’s Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, officials said Wednesday.

“Please know that we acknowledge and appreciate the proud legacy of our Seoul American Schools,” Lois Rapp, a Department of Defense Education Activity official, said in an email. “The combined school will be named Seoul American Middle/High School.”

Falling enrollment due to the ongoing move of U.S. troops and their families to Camp Humphreys as the military transitions its headquarters 40 miles south of Seoul prompted DODEA to combine the Seoul American Middle School and the Seoul American High School.

In a memo to parents and a recent town hall, school officials said the combined school would be called the Seoul Middle High School.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

ROK Supreme Court Rules that Parents Not Responsible for Paying for Kid’s College Tuition

Another example of the expansion of the entitlement culture.  Fortunately the ROK Supreme Court shot down this attempt to make parents responsible for paying for the tuition of their adult children:

Parents do not have custodial duties for adult child, the top court has ruled.

The Supreme Court set the rule with a case in which an adult son filed a suit against his divorced father, demanding he cover the cost of studying in the United States.

The court rejected the claim, stating that the father was not obliged to look after his adult child.

The father-son dispute dates back to 2010 when the father’s second son fled to the U.S. at age 15 for study, without his father’s consent. The father refused to support the son there, including school tuition and other living costs.

The parents divorced shortly afterward, with the mother given custody and the father obliged to support their basic life.

In 2016, the son filed a suit against the father, demanding that he pay 140 million won ($123,000) to cover tuition and living costs at a prestigious university to which he was admitted in 2014.

The son claimed his father was obliged to support him financially because “an increasing number of children make their living with money from their parents.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.