Boosting education for multiracial families

The families of Vietnamese mothers and their children in South Korea will become valuable assets in future relations between Korea and Vietnam, said Dao Quang Thu, vice minister of the Ministry of Planning and Investment during a recent seminar in Hanoi. He said he had hopes for the role of the growing generation of multiracial families in Korea. Of 200,000 foreign national married to Korean men, 70,000, or 35 percent, come from Southeast Asian countries. One out of two children in multiracial families is born to mothers from Southeast Asia.

Their education and future path should attract our attention. We must change our mindset. The children should be given opportunity to groom their other natural half through living and study experience in the countries of their mothers.

The children born to parents of different nationality can easily speak languages and connect to cultures of both countries. They can grow up to help better the relationship of the countries of their parents as well as mature our path toward a multicultural society. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is one of the fastest growing regional bloc and the country’s biggest investment target as well as its second largest trade partner. Mutual reliance is ever deepening and our corporate activity in the region is becoming more and more important due to rising power of China.

We should pave the way for children of Southeast Asian mothers to pursue college and postgraduate studies in Southeast Asian countries and apply unique Korean perseverance and drive. They can be best qualified for talents in the times demanding balance in diversity. They can grow up to be Korean envoys to their mothers’ birth countries, businessmen and heroes of accomplishing the Korean Dreams of their immigrated parents. We hope President Park Geun-hye and her government pay special attention to education opportunities for the children of multiracial families.

*Chung Hae-moon, Secretary general of Asean-Korea Center