By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter


The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development on Wednesday announced a plan to provide elite education for about 400,000 students, or 5 percent of the total students from elementary to middle and high schools by 2010.

To implement the plan, the ministry will set up two more specialized schools and 58 institutions specially designed for gifted students.

The new policy came as the government has long come under criticism for failing to provide higher level education to talented students under the current system, which focuses on standardized education and equal opportunities.

``I hope we will succeed in cultivating creative human resources, which are pivotal to national development, by smoothly implementing the new elite education policy,’’ said Education Minister Ahn Byung-young.

He said the ministry will invest 208.7 billion won ($18.86 million) for the implementation of the policies by 2010, while developing 12 teaching materials for elite education programs every year.

The ministry will allow students to attend different levels of classes of major subjects at half of the nation’s middle and high schools in a move to bridge the scholastic performance gap by 2007.

Besides these measures, the ministry will also adopt a ``advanced placement system’’ which will recognize credits gained by high school students as college credits. The pilot program will be launched at high schools specializing science in 2005 and then expanded to other high schools in 2006.

The government will also cultivate 6,000 teachers to teach gifted students, while allowing brilliant students to jump to a higher grade and graduate earlier.

It plans to work out special education programs for smart students of underprivileged families so that they can have better educational opportunities.

Among the beneficiaries of the elite education policy, 1 percent or 80,000 will be educated at specialized schools and other institutions exclusively for the gifted.

The remaining 4 percent or 320,000 will receive elite education at ordinary schools by taking advantage of different levels of classes, intensive courses and the advanced placement system.

Currently, the number of beneficiaries of elite education stands at only 25,000 or 0.3 percent of all students.

The government is planning to establish one more science school and two more art and information schools for talented children. It will build 58 more specialized schools for bright students to raise the number of such schools from the current 192 to 250 by 2010.

A ministry official said the current elite education program focuses on such subjects as math and science. But he said the subjects will be diversified to include art, athletics, language and writing.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr