Ministry of Education Selects Exemplary Cases of Proactive Administration Including 'Digital Education Transition' and 'Agricultural Produce Packages'

Promotion of Wireless Network Construction Project for All Elementary, Middle, and High Schools
Remaining Period Presents Challenges for Overcoming COVID-19 in Education Sector

Park Baek-beom, Vice Minister of Education / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] The Ministry of Education has selected the preparation for a digital education transformation, support projects for agricultural product packages, and school wireless network construction projects as exemplary cases of proactive administration in response to the prolonged COVID-19 situation.

On the morning of the 10th, Vice Minister Park Baembeom announced the Ministry of Education's "Outstanding Cases of Proactive Administration in the First Half of the Year and Key Tasks for the Second Half" at the 37th Vice Ministerial Meeting.

The Ministry of Education discovered innovative digital-based future education tasks through dialogues with policy demanders and experts, including students, parents, and teachers, for the "Post-COVID-19 Education Transformation," and is promoting these as part of the Korean New Deal comprehensive plan. They are working on establishing wireless environments for elementary, middle, and high schools and advancing the "Green Smart School" project to digitally reconstruct aging schools.

Additionally, they alleviated the difficulties of producers and parents burdened with meal preparation by providing agricultural product packages to households where school meals were suspended. Agricultural product packages were provided to 4.99 million students across 14 cities and provinces and one county. Regarding school wireless network construction, the "Elementary and Secondary Online Education Infrastructure Construction Project" was added in the third supplementary budget, aiming to establish wireless networks in all classrooms of elementary, middle, and high schools.

The Ministry of Education has presented COVID-19 overcoming tasks in the education sector and future education innovation tasks as proactive administration tasks for the remaining period of this year.

To this end, they have conducted "Daily COVID-19 Inspection Meetings," frequently checked quarantine situations, prepared related response guidelines, reduced and adjusted Ministry of Education projects handled by teachers to lessen their workload, and continuously promoted reductions in cross-curricular learning hours. As future education innovation tasks, they plan to enhance the Korean-style remote education system by upgrading the public platform for remote classes and developing ten types of future-oriented teaching competency enhancement programs.

Vice Minister Park Baembeom stated, "Proactive administration is the natural duty of public officials," adding, "In a situation where students, parents, and teachers are experiencing many difficulties at school sites due to COVID-19, the Ministry of Education will continue to put more effort into proactive administration."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.