The outlook of the election for Seoul’s education superintendent remains blurry for the conservative bloc, as candidates have failed to form a merger while continuing to attack each other. With less than a week left to the local elections, Cho Hee-yeon, the current superintendent of education for Seoul, and Kang Shin-man, who are considered liberal-leaning candidates, announced they have formed a merger Thursday. “Seeing some candidates demonize and assault certain groups for t

The Ministry of Education is to run a 50-day inspection on the educational environment of 1,250 kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools from Wednesday. The newly launched task force will review the schools’ respective quarantine measures, guidelines for extracurricular activities and monitor school facilities. As schools have recently resumed normal operations after a two-year COVID-19-induced hiatus, the inspection team will also examine schools’ respective infectio

Seoul Institute of the Arts has named Megawati Soekarnoputri, the head of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, as its honorary chair professor, hoping to encourage cultural interchange between Korea and Indonesia. The art institute held a ceremony at its campus in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday, appointing Megawati as an honorary professor. The institute‘s President Lee Nam-sik attended the ceremony, too. Megawati is an Indonesian politician who served as president of Indo

With the world slowly phasing into a post-COVID-19 pandemic era, Sollute Study Abroad Business Group is to arrange educational camps in Canada and New Zealand for teenagers this summer. Sollute Study Abroad Business Group is an education company that arranges camps for youths in English-speaking countries in partnership with local education offices and schools since 2014. Some 1,050 teenagers participated in camps arranged by the company until January 2020, before the pandemic hit the world.

Korea International School offers comprehensive counselling with emphasis on social-emotional growth and academic development that guides high school students through the challenges of their teenage years to aid them in the college application process. High school principal Aimmie Kellar observes that since the pandemic began, “We’re having more conversations with families. Parents talk with us about taking care of the whole child.” KIS counselors provide a common language to

Plans to bring pre-pandemic normalcy to schools across the country in May are being met with both excitement and worry. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Education announced the “back to normal” guidelines that will see schools in Korea resume normal operations beginning May 1. Under the new guidelines, kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools will reintroduce both academic and extracurricular activities, halting online classes, dropping self-testing routines and arrangin

Education Ministry announces ‘back to normal’ guidelines for schools

More than 20 percent of schools plan to arrange field trips this year

More than 1 in 4 elementary students have experienced greater feelings of depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Education Ministry said Wednesday. 　 Korea Research conducted a study on mental health of students in Korea, which ran from Feb. 11 to 18 and involved 341,412 elementary, middle and high school students, under the request of the ministry. While 27 percent of elementary students responded they have become more depressed than compared to before the pandemic, 26.3 percent said

Ministry maintains midterm exam exclusion policy for infected students

One in three students in Korea have contracted COVID-19 since 2020

Taking a step back from its initial decision to ban COVID-19-confirmed students from taking midterms, the Ministry of Education is now looking into allowing them to sit for the exams. The Education Ministry said it is currently reviewing the possibilities of having students with active coronavirus cases take the tests later this month. “We have not decided to allow students who have been ordered into isolation from the disease control authorities to take the midterm exams,“ the m

The Education Ministry’s decision to maintain a ban on students with COVID-19 from taking midterm exams has drawn backlash, with students and parents voicing concerns that missing out on the exams could put them at a disadvantage. “It is rather fortunate that our whole family already had COVID-19,” a high school student who attends a school in northern Seoul said. “It would be frustrating to miss the midterms as I had messed up on the previous one,” said the hig

Ministry says omicron-driven virus peak at schools has passed

COVID outbreak takes toll on students, parents and teachers