Education offices, ministry to send Korean teachers abroad

The Ministry of Education will work with nine regional education offices to help foreigners abroad learn Korean and to attract more international students.

International students participate in a Korean spelling contest at Keimyung University in October. [NEWS1]

The Ministry of Education will work with nine regional education offices to help foreigners abroad learn Korean and to attract more international students.

The education offices of Gwangju, North Gyeongsang, Daegu, Busan, Seoul, Incheon, South Jeolla, South Chungcheong and North Chungcheong were selected for the project, announced by the Education Ministry on Tuesday.

The ministry will offer a total of 10.4 billion won ($16.68 million) to the education offices participating in the project, and they will also pitch in 22 billion won together.

The offices will work with Korean Education Centers in 16 countries and cities such as Uzbekistan, Japan and Germany to offer Korean education to local students and help those who want to study in Korea. Each office will be sending employees and Korean language education specialists to the education centers to work on such projects.

For instance, the North Chungcheong Office of Education will arrange a study abroad fair for foreigners who want to study in Korea. The Daegu Office of Education will create a program that allows foreigners to experience Korean culture and food. It will also create a Korean speech contest and invite award winners to visit Korea.

The project follows the government's Study Korea 300K plan announced in August, which aims to have 300,000 international students studying at Korean universities by 2027. There were 205,167 as of February last year.

The ministry will see how this year's project goes and later invite more education offices to participate, depending on how it goes.

"We expect international exchanges created by the project to create more opportunities for Korean education and attract international talent," Song Geun-hyeon, head of the ministry's global education planning bureau, said. "It will help our local regions to develop and overcome the population crisis."

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]