Korea

Korea

by Sunju Kim, GBT MK staff, 2020

Korean Education System


In-country resources available to families


Cultural differences for teachers to know 

It is different from MK to MK and from situation to situation.

Challenges/recommendations for MKs on furlough


Major Issues


Cultural Differences between Asian students and the Average American MK


Universities

Handong Global University (Korean: 한동대학교, Hanja: 韓東大學校) is a private, Christian, four-year university located in Pohang, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea, and is a good option for Korean TCKs.

Undergraduate programs are organized under twelve schools: Global Leadership School, School of International Studies, Languages, and Literature, School of Management and Economics, School of Law, School of Communication Arts and Sciences, School of Counselling Psychology and Social Welfare, School of Spatial Environmental System Engineering, School of Industrial and Information Design, School of Life Sciences, School of Computer Sciences and Electronic Engineering, School of Mechanical and Control Engineering, Global EDISON Academy.

While the university offers 30 to 35% of its courses in English in any given semester, the majors that English speaking foreign students can pursue are Information Technology, Global Management and Business, US and International Law, Psychology and Counseling, and Korean Studies.

For more information see Wikipedia.

Other universities have English tracks, but their suitability depends on a TCK’s educational and financial situation.

Other Resources

Steve Sang-Cheol Moon, the director of KRIM (Korean Research Institute for Mission) had a one-year research project especially for Korean MKs with other researchers. He wrote an article, “Korean Missionary Children and Their Educational Needs,” in 2013. Below is an some information from an English abstract (pp 65-76). The entire article, mostly in Korean, can be downloaded below.

“The information presented here is based on empirical research of two sorts: first, a quantitative survey I designed that was processed by staff at the Korea Research Institute for Mission (KRIM) in late December 2012; second, qualitative research involving field-based interviews carried out in nine countries in which 176 members of the Korean mission community took part — missionaries (70), MKs (76), and MK educators (30) — during the period of October 2012 through April 2013. 1

Korean MK KRIM Article Download

Another article written by Steve Sang-Cheol Moon (2014) is Missions from Korea 2014: Missionary Children.