The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday it has teamed up with the National Assembly and Hyundai Motor Group to operate self-driving buses in the Yeouido area of western Seoul, in an effort to improve the convenience of transportation for visitors. The 13-seater autonomous bus developed by the South Korean automaker began service on Wednesday at noon. It runs on a 3.1-kilometer route connecting a parking lot in Yeouido to the National Assembly building. Only two shuttle buses will operat

Social Affairs July 5, 2023

The Korean National Police Agency’s National Office of Investigation said Tuesday that they are investigating 193 cases of what are being referred to as “ghost children,” babies whose births were never registered with local authorities, as part of the government’s latest efforts to discover unregistered children nationwide. Police said that they had received a total of 209 reports of unregistered babies as of Tuesday. The whereabouts of 20 nameless babies have been iden

Social Affairs July 4, 2023

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said his proposal of bringing foreign babysitters to ease the child care burden of households would reverse the waning birth rate as he marked one year in office since his reelection on Monday. Addressing the ever-decreasing birth rate as the city government’s biggest task to tackle, the mayor said the system would operate as a pilot program in the latter half of the year, and the government would later decide to implement the system. The city government will also fi

Social Affairs July 3, 2023

Illuminated by the vibrant colors of the rainbow, thousands from the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters congregated for the 24th Seoul Queer Culture Festival in Euljiro, central Seoul, Saturday. Participants from various generations donned colorful attire, waved rainbow flags and marched through the city's central district, standing together against rising anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and advocating for equal rights. Jang Sun-young, a 70-year-old, was among those who paraded through the streets

Social Affairs July 2, 2023

A new subway line connecting areas in the western part of the Seoul metropolitan area will start service on Saturday, with many hoping it will reduce commutes for office workers residing northwest, west and southwest of Seoul. The Daegok-Sosa double-track subway line will bridge Goyang, just northwest of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province, to Bucheon, southwest of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province, via Gimpo Airport in western Seoul. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the new subw

Social Affairs June 30, 2023

South Korean tax authorities have launched tax investigations targeting star lecturers at major private academies as part of the government’s efforts to identify alleged irregularities in the operations of hagwon, or private education institutions. According to local reports and education insiders on Friday, the National Tax Service conducted a special tax audit of Hyun Woo-jin on Thursday, a math instructor at Megastudy, one of Korea’s biggest hagwon companies. The NTS is reportedly

Social Affairs June 30, 2023

At a time when English skills in the business sector play a pivotal role in communicating and securing business deals, global education firm SPEP provides tailor-made language education and human resources consulting of professionals at local and overseas companies. The business language education provider develops its learning material based on its client’s needs and wants and operates an in-house research and development center comprising international and domestic English and business

Social Affairs June 28, 2023

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday that reboarding subways within 10 minutes would be free for a year starting in July. Under the new scheme, the exemption will only apply to the same transportation card the passenger used for their initial boarding, and the transfers can only be made on the same subway station route. Currently, passengers pay an additional fare if they reboard the subway after going in the wrong direction, depending on how far they have traveled, or if they have t

Social Affairs June 28, 2023

Five South Korean universities ranked among the top 100 global universities, the ranking released by QS Quacquarelli Symonds showed Wednesday. Seoul National University sat at 41st on the 20th edition of the QS World University Rankings, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) ranked 56th, Yonsei University and Korea University sat at 76th and 79th, respectively, and Pohang University of Science and Technology was 100th. For its ninth year, Massachusetts Institute of Technolog

Social Affairs June 28, 2023

Following a weeklong debate on the difficulty of so-called high-level “killer questions” in the Suneung, South Korea’s state-administered college entrance exam, local high school teachers said Tuesday that the killer questions are “arduously difficult,” requiring university-level knowledge beyond the scope of high school students. The math section, which delves into complex equations and requires students to solve short-answer questions without a calculator, is for

Social Affairs June 27, 2023

The Education Ministry on Monday unveiled a set of comprehensive plans to alleviate private education costs for students, starting with setting up a ministry-led committee comprising public school teachers to adjust the difficulty level of the Suneung, the nation’s college entrance exam. Calling it a way of restoring the fairness of the test, the committee will eliminate the so-called “killer questions” in the exams starting from this year, saying the difficulty level of such q

Social Affairs June 26, 2023

한국 드라마, 케이팝, 문화와 콘텐츠 등이 선풍적인 인기를 끌면서 한국어를 배우고자 하는 외국인의 수요도 급속히 늘어났지만, 한국어 교육 현장에 체계적인 지원을 담당하는 정부 “컨트롤 타워”는 없었다. 이주호 교육부 장관 겸 사회부총리는 최근 코리아헤럴드와의 인터뷰에서 교육부가 이 역할을 맡아 주도적으로 한국어 지원 체계를 설립, 확장하겠다고 밝혔다. 이 장관은 한국의 높아진 경제, 문화, 외교적 위상에 따라 한국어 교육 수요도 지속적으로 증가하고 있는 추세라고 말하며 교육부가 관계 부처와 기관의 역량을 총체적으로 결집하여, 보다 적극적인 교육 체계 구축을 이끌겠다고 말했다. “문체부, 외교부, 이민청, 법무부 등 다양한 부처랑 조율해서 한국을 (더 많이) 알리고, (교육부도) 변화를 준비하고 있다”라고 설명하면서 “부처 간의 협력, 연계가 미약하다는 지적을 받고 있는데, (외국인을 위한 한국어 교육을) 잘 수용할 수 있는 체

한국어판 June 26, 2023

The South Korean Education Ministry’s decision to exclude the high-level “killer questions” from the Suneung, the state-administered college entrance exam, has once again rekindled debate regarding the test’s difficulty. Arguably one of the toughest exams in the world, Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test, commonly known as the Suneung, has played a pivotal role for decades in measuring students’ potential achievement in the future after enrolling in colleg

Social Affairs June 25, 2023

The Education Ministry said Thursday it has teamed up the police and the market watchdog, the Fair Trade Commission, to identify irregularities in operations of, hagwon, or private academies and institutions nationwide for next two weeks. The ministry started receiving reports on hagwon that provide one-on-one classes, run false advertisements, promote excessive spending on private education, and charge separately for textbooks. The reports can be filed on the Education Ministry's website u

Social Affairs June 22, 2023

Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said Wednesday the ministry will start receiving reports on irregularities in the private education industry as part of education reforms aimed at reducing the nation’s reliance on private schools and academies. The reports received by the Education Ministry will cover speculations over former test examiners providing private academies with insider information about the national college entrance exam, as well as cases of false advertising. Announcing a set of m

Social Affairs June 21, 2023