Gyeongsangbuk-do's education places a goal on "education for the whole person." In essence, this goal seeks a balance between the spirits of modern education in Korea, as scripted in 1895 within the educational proclamation, and the humanitarianism emphasized in the Fundamentals of Education Act. Moral education has priority, since the goals of education could be achieved when basic human virtues are followed.
The honest life as mentioned above is a sound one that is derived from proper and upright basic life manners and habits, community spirits, democratic and safe school environments, inheritance of cultural traditions and the build-up of emotional stability by way of healthy activities and recreational engagements.
The humanity education necessary for such living thus focuses on building self-consciousness and community spirits. Personalities, through habitual activities and self-control, forms the basis to establish positive egos, which is then brought out to contribute to the advancement of school, society and national communities with democratic civility. The community spirits can be attained from close relations while enjoying pleasant school life, volunteer activities, profound views of the nation and sound cultural recreation.
Humanity education should be conducted to teach how one can self-examine and judge consistency in their knowledge and behaviors for themselves with the experience-based tasks suitably assigned for teachers and students.
Tasks such as volunteer activities, education consulting for parents, experiences in traditional culture with regard to the characteristics of each school and region. The emphasis of education for sound view of the nation has been laid upon how to cope with historical manipulation by surrounding countries, settle conflicts before the re-unification of South and North Korea, and what to propose as visions for the new country.
One of the standing issues facing education is how to balance cultural education and education that is practical and useful in the 21st century. Ever since the inception of modern industrial society, practicality has been increasingly emphasized, which has led to the decline of academic skills, as cultural education has been underestimated, accompanied by even basic skills learning. This has been occurring despite investment in education and expansion of educational opportunities. Therefore, a number of countries around the world are giving renewed importance to basic education, accentuating "return to basic education" as a part of a broader educational reform. In this sense, education that is faithful to the basic courses is prioritized by the second policy of the Direction of Gyeongbuk Education. To be more specific, education that is faithful to basic courses represent actions to cultivate basic functions of reading, writing, and mathematics. It is the kind of education that both promotes and serves as the foundation for problem-solving abilities, minimum mandatory elements of learning, aesthetic skills, as well as for stronger drive to pursue greater learning. Above all, learning skills are important as elements of metacognition, which opens channels for individuals to cogitate upon their own thoughts, subsequently leading them to develop self-control in learning. The ability of learning represents the ability to acquire and reconstitute new knowledge and information, to exercise self-control and management in such acquisition, to enhance basic thinking power, and to understand how to learn and the basic essential attitude for learning.
The success of basic education depends on seamless operation and support of curriculum. The essence of education is that people grasp and acquire basic learning skills while achieving the goal of education courses. Providing a distinctive educational course, guaranteeing basic educational background, running a team solely for the management of academic background and information center for university/higher education connection, strengthening the competitiveness of vocational education, operating a system to assess the health and physical force of students, and performing public health education, these are all tasks set out to ensure education adheres to the basic courses.
As the saying goes "Taking the initiative to start means the work is already half finished," basic education represents a very good and important start. Support for children and special education aims to expand opportunities for early childhood education at the point where social life is beginning, as to prevent the lacking of culture and to cultivate potential. In order to support education to improve the language skills of speaking, a base of learning turns on education to read books and designate personal experience as the center for learning English. Creation of u-Learning, then, is to ensure that each individual is well-adapted to the changing environment in education in society and to facilitate self-controlled/managed learning throughout life.
The keyword in the 21st century is "Creativity." The argument for its place in education is beyond strong. Creativity, indeed, is much-needed in high capacity for active survival in an era of constant change, during which the barriers amongst countries, industries, and academic disciplines have been destroyed by linkages and integrations. The purpose of this policy is to train people to generate precious intellectual independence and creativity, and make education maximize the creativity and originality found in each student.
The education of creativity represents the differentiated education for every individual, each with his or her unique individualities and talents. In other words, it means personalized education, characterized and diversified by individuality. Each school conducts classes for every level, and runs optional courses to expand qualitative differences amongst the talents of individuals, as to ensure full materialization of such differences during education.
To develop creativity, a number of tasks such as the implementation of the comprehensive system of education for the gifted and talented and the strengthening of several areas of education must be followed. Science education must be strengthened to cultivate research abilities, and the same with essay-writing instruction, as to comprehensively improve the skills to rethink and express. Extracurricular courses are also in operation, which aim to improve various other kinds of talents, abilities, and skills, and to expand opportunities for alternative education. For example, support for the opening of business education and student club activities.
The effect of creativity education will come forth through the formation and conducting of the courses. Educational courses for students to respond to future changes in society and to accelerate self-control/management in learning bestows much opportunity for creative education. We will make efforts to ensure that political education courses at each school are formed and are in operation, and to consider the actual conditions of schools and regions and the performance level of students. We will then run assessment and act in accordance to feedback from the results of the conducting of such courses.
The main objective of education is to raise individuals who are able to learn by free will and conduct properly with reasonable self-judgment. Needless to say, educational bodies should be given autonomy in management to cultivate those individuals.
Currently, many schools are in a position where they passively follow educational policies drafted and set by higher institutions. And thus, it is believed that new policies aim to give greater autonomy to schools will enhance the effect of education. The school should be indeed an arena of open response, in which various types of teaching and learning methods and activities are engaged. Schools must be modernized and be made to play crucial roles as educational and cultural centers in their respective cities or regions.
Autonomy and voluntary duties at schools can be elevated by the abolition of various restraints, and by establishing systems to support school management independence in governing educational affairs, school affairs, even finances and human resources, advanced management abilities of administers, and close associative bonds between parents and the local community.
Administrative bodies should build supportive systems to horizontally cooperating with schools and should commit to educational improvement and well-being of the community by associating with local governments. Furthermore, they should also seek ways to extend parents' and the community's educational roles in education and to share educational issues from various angles.
Tasks such as reasonable personnel administration, establishment of E-education administration, efficient management of associated organizations, increased satisfaction in education policies, and expansion of training opportunities for parents to build up a system to support school administration. Others, such as conferences for education, control of the sizes of schools and establishment of leading schools, are to promote regional improvements in education.
