After working as the South Korea Dual Language International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme Coordinator for the past six months, it is great to see several Korean public high schools starting their IB journey this week in Daegu and Jeju. As a Korean American educator for 35 years, it is meaningful and rewarding to be part of changes taking place in my motherland's education system. The following is an article I wrote for the IB organization:

Reimagining education in South Korea

By Keith Kitong Yi, South Korea DLDP Project Coordinator, Strategic Initiatives, Innovation and Incubation

The late Sir Ken Robinson, a world-renowned thinker on education innovation, delivered a speech titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” in 2006 that remains one of the most popular TED talks to this day. He said during that speech, “Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment, and it is not enough. Reform is no use anymore because that’s simply improving a broken model. What we need now is a revolution in education.”  

 A small, yet very meaningful, revolution is taking place in the Korean education system. In 2019, after decades of attempts at reform and curriculum revisions led by the national ministry of education, the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education (DMOE) and Jeju Provincial Office of Education (JPOE), signed a memorandum of cooperation with the IBO to deliver the Dual Language Diploma Programme (DLDP) in their public high schools. This unique partnership will allow students to take up to four of the six DP courses in Korean. Following the footsteps of Germany and Japan, South Korea will become the third country with formal government partnerships with the IB to offer such a program to public school students.

While we have been working with Governments, districts, and groups of schools through formal partnerships to introduce and support the implementation of our programmes in English, French and Spanish, what makes our collaboration with Japan, Korea and Germany unique is that we are now able to reach a group of students in public schools undertaking IB’s Diploma programme in their own national languages.

As the tenth-largest economy in the world, South Korea represents one of the most remarkable economic success stories of the 20^th century. The people’s passion for and state investment in education has been the driving force of national development since the end of the Korean War in 1953. However, this extraordinary economic rise came with a cost–Korea is known for having one of the most merciless education systems in the world. Competition over admission into top universities is extremely fierce. Students spend an additional 6-8 hours outside of the regular school day attending private academies, called hagwons.

Moreover, the current college entrance exam, su-neung, which is mostly knowledge-based and summative, is an exam that is famous for bringing the whole country to a standstill for one day each November. For many, sadly, their futures are dictated by the outcomes of this single exam. The huge burden on Korean students’ mental well-being due to hagwons and su-neung and the paradigm shift taking place in education to equip students with competencies needed for the 21st century are some of the reasons why Korea is interested in IB programmes.

 The Changing IB Landscape

In a recent Tes magazine interview, Olli-Pekka Heinonen talked about how “courageous” and “future-looking” the early pioneers of the IB were when launching their education model to the world in 1968.  

“Those people would not be happy if we just continue doing the things that they did because the world we’re living in today has different challenges.” We need to create teaching and learning that helps our students to go with the existing challenges and the challenges of tomorrow that we might not be aware of – that’s the heritage I’m responsible for.”

Since the start of the project in 2019, 28 public education schools including seven high schools, nine middle schools, and 12 elementary schools in Daegu and Jeju are disrupting the status quo in their educational communities by adopting the IB’s philosophy and pedagogical practices. In many ways, like the early pioneers of IB, they too are being courageous and future-looking to embrace a new educational model for their students to prepare them for a future world that we cannot imagine today.

In the last three years, the number of IB schools in South Korea has nearly tripled from 14 to 40 schools. The IB landscape, which was primarily private international until 2018, now has twice the number of public education schools. Teachers and heads of these public schools have accepted core IB principles such as international-mindedness, learner profile, and approaches to teaching and learning. Additionally, in contrast to hagwon and su-neung culture that continues to exist in Korea, these public schools have boldly adopted the ‘holistic’ approach to education which is at the center of IB’s philosophy.

With support from the Authorization and IB World Schools department, efforts are ongoing to connect the newly onboarded public education schools with the existing IB community. We can already see the positive outcome of such networking between schools in the ongoing sharing of good practices. Several private international schools have opened their classrooms for public school teachers to observe lessons, connect with experienced IB teachers, and see an IB education in action. It is heartening to see that four teacher education institutions have embarked on their IBEC journey. All these efforts and developments contribute to a stronger IB ecosystem in the country.

Joined Up Support

The ongoing success of this strategic initiative, which is almost like establishing a mini-IB in Korean, would not be possible without continuous support from multiple IB departments.

Development and Recognition colleagues have been supporting the onboarding of interested schools in Jeju and Daegu. The Multilingual Editorial and Publishing department has been most efficiently translating key IB documents into Korean with the highest quality while the Commercial Publications unit has been supporting the translation of IB textbook resources into Korean. Global Marketing and Communications department has been producing quality materials in Korean for public education schools to generate the buy-in.

Professional Development Delivery and IBEN teams, since 2019, have trained more than 1500 teachers in 100+ IB professional development workshops delivered in Korean or with Korean language support.

November 2023 will be the first examination session when roughly 200 DP students are expected to take their examinations in Korean. Examiner Recruitment and Training unit has been actively recruiting bilingual examiners to ensure the high quality and successful conduct of the DP examinations. Soon, Exam Publishing and Assessment Development and Delivery teams will be busy producing live exam papers in Korean and gearing up for operationalizing the first examination session in Korean in November 2023.

The collaborative partnership between all stakeholders has been critically important to offer the best possible support to public education schools in South Korea embracing IB programmes. Global Director, Business Development, Haif Bannayan, extends his sincere thanks to all the internal IB units that have been giving their support for this project.

What’s NEXT?

Our work with government offices in Korea (and in Japan) paves the way to a new approach to introducing IB programmes in education systems at the national level.

For now, I want to leave you with this quote from Mr. Young Koo Lim, the Head of Pyoseon High School, a newly authorized IB World School:

“We believe that the IB equips young people with the knowledge and insight to become thoughtful human beings and global leaders. While continuing to monitor reforms that are taking place in Korea, we will do our best to provide an international model of world-class education in Jeju.”

With the new school year fast approaching and the first cohort of DP students ready to enter the IB classrooms, stakeholders are full of energy, excitement, and anticipation as they engage in this meaningful attempt at reimagining education in Korea.