North Gyeongsang to offer scholarships, internships to boost international student population
Published: 31 Jan. 2025, 14:48
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- LEE TAE-HEE
- [email protected]
![People enter a job fair for international students held in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang, on Aug. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/31/e3b1cddc-d6e9-4f5c-a228-f30b59e826b8.jpg)
People enter a job fair for international students held in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang, on Aug. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]
North Gyeongsang hopes to continue the rapid growth of its international student population with plans to offer scholarships and internships this year.
The province announced plans to have 30,000 international students in the province by 2028 on Thursday, compared to 11,334 as of 2024. The 2024 figure is up 50.5 percent on year, the largest percentage growth among Korea's 17 cities and provinces during the period.
Aiming to make the increase continue, the province plans to offer more benefits to students.
As the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is set to be held in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang, in November, the province plans to select 200 international students as volunteers ahead of the event.
Although referred to as volunteers, the students will get scholarships from North Gyeongsang and visit various attractions in the area to create social media content and promote the province.
The province's internship program, which was trialed in 2024 to offer for-credit internships to international students in the province, will also be expanded this year. Currently, the internship program is only offered to students at Gumi University, Gyeongbuk Gyeongsan Institute of Industry-University Covergence, Daegu University and Daegu Catholic University.
University courses teaching practical Korean and the history of North Gyeongsang, which were only offered at Kyungwoon University, Catholic Sangji College and Yeungnam University, will be offered at all North Gyeongsang universities with an international student population.
Aiming to have students outside Korea consider studying in North Gyeongsang, the province will build various support centers abroad. The centers will be named Global Gyeongbuk Hakdang, teaching Korean and offering admissions information about the province's universities.
North Gyeongsang also plans to apply for the local government-designed visa program, which allows provinces to ease visa regulations for either the D-2 student visa or E-7 work visa.
The Ministry of Justice will select local governments to participate in the program in March, with North Gyeongsang hoping to ease minimum bank balance requirements for student visa applicants.
"North Gyeongsang is open to international students," said Lee Cheol-woo, governor of North Gyeongsang. "We will do our best for talented international students to study in North Gyeongsang and settle down as residents."
BY LEE TAE-HEE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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