Gyeonggi-do Expands Overseas Youth Training to Adolescents... 100 Participants Dispatched This Year

Gyeonggi Province is expanding the target participants of the ‘Ladder Program,’ which provides overseas training opportunities, from youth to low-income and vulnerable youth.

The Gyeonggi Youth Ladder Program is a flagship youth policy of Gyeonggi Province under the 8th elected administration, introduced last year to provide ‘more equal opportunities’ to young people.

This project supports young people’s overseas university training experience to help reduce social disparities and offer opportunities to explore diverse career paths. Participants receive full coverage of all program costs, including airfare, accommodation, university program fees, as well as pre-training and post-management.

Gyeonggi Youth Ladder Program Information Poster

Last year, Gyeonggi Province selected 200 young people and conducted approximately four weeks of overseas training from July to August at five universities: the University of Michigan, University of Washington, University at Buffalo in the U.S., University of Sydney in Australia, and Fudan University in China.

On the 21st, Gyeonggi Province announced that the Youth Ladder Program for adolescents was selected in last year’s lottery fund (national subsidy) support project competition, and the program will be implemented starting this year. The lottery fund is a fund project for vulnerable groups, and this year’s program will be fully funded by this fund.

During the summer vacation this year, in July and August, Gyeonggi Province plans to dispatch 100 adolescents to North American countries such as the U.S. and Canada for training.

To help participants adapt locally, the province will operate pre-training and growth camps covering life skills, safety, and English education.

Additionally, the program will promote individual missions and competency development projects such as university visits, meetings with international students, visits to innovative companies, trekking, as well as visits to educational and public institutions that can assist in career exploration, and cultural facility visits to experience global culture.

In particular, by linking with the ‘Youth Online Learning Coaching’ that supports one-on-one online learning after overseas training, the program plans to provide continuous learning opportunities and guide systematic growth for participating youth following a step-by-step roadmap.

Gyeonggi Province will select a total of 100 vulnerable youth aged 15 to 18, including basic livelihood security recipients, single-parent families, and near-poverty groups. Specific application methods and selection processes will be announced later.

Jo Tae-hoon, Director of the Lifelong Education Division of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "The Ladder Program, which was first conducted for youth last year, received a great response, and now that the target has expanded to adolescents, I hope it will be an opportunity for more residents to dream of a bigger world."

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