1 million digital talents planned for next five years

A child looks at an educational robot during the 2022 EduPlus Week, a fair to encourage the development of new educational content at the COEX convention center in Seoul on Aug. 11. [NEWS1]

Korea wants to nurture 1 million individuals' talents in digital technologies over the next five years.

The Ministry of Education jointly announced on Monday a comprehensive plan to foster digital talent with other ministries including the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The goal of training 1 million digital talents is part of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s agenda. Policies to produce talents will be pushed from the second half of this year, including mandating software and artificial intelligence education for elementary and middle schools.

A digital talent, according to the education ministry, is a worker with digital skills and capabilities in artificial intelligence, blockchain, general software, big data, metaverse, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and 6G, and the cybersecurity sector. The goal is to provide systematic education from childhood.

The government first plans to double the hours of Information Technology (IT) courses in elementary and middle schools. From 2025, elementary schools will increase IT classes from the current 17 hours to 34 hours annually. Middle schools will increase theirs from the current 34 to 68 hours. IT courses will use some of the time dedicated to experiential learning activities in schools.

Coding classes will become mandatory in elementary and middle schools. Until now, elementary and middle school only taught basic coding. The plan is to enhance the courses so that they teach skills used in AI or big data-related industries.

“For the elementary curriculum, we will implement play-based algorithm learning or block-based programming language,” said Oh Seok-hwan, director of the Planning and Coordination Office at the Ministry of Education. “In middle schools, students will learn to solve real-life problems using coding, while high school students will learn to design algorithms.”

In order to bridge the educational gap between urban and rural communities, “digital tutors,” or assistant lecturers for classes, will be deployed to schools in the countryside.

Universities will be able to expand the number of students in departments related to the digital industry as long as they also boost the number of faculty members.

In addition, integrated bachelor's, master’s and doctoral degree programs will be implemented next year in digital-related majors. This will allow students to get a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a doctor's degree in five and a half years.

Universities will also introduce a so-called "boot camp," or an intensive education program for digital technology, for students not majoring in that subject.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]