Gyeonggi Office of Education to Allow 1st Year Middle School Students to Choose 'Free Year' or 'Free Semester' Starting Next Year

Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education will abolish the 'Free Year System' currently operated uniformly for all first-year middle school students in the province next year.

Instead, a new 'Free Semester System,' which has the same concept as the Free Year System but is implemented for one semester instead of one year, will be established, allowing individual schools to choose between operating the Free Year System or the Free Semester System.

The Free Year System is a program designed to enhance self-directed learning abilities by strengthening participatory classes and process-centered evaluations during the first year of middle school. The Free Year System operates for two semesters of the first year in this manner, while the Free Semester System operates for one semester of the first year.

The Gyeonggi Office of Education announced on the 5th that from next year, individual schools will be able to autonomously choose to operate either the Free Year System or the Free Semester System, which has been introduced in all middle schools in the jurisdiction since 2017.

Schools that choose the Free Year System will see no changes, but schools that select the Free Semester System will operate one semester as a Free Semester and the other semester as a 'Semester to Develop Thinking Power' during either the first or second semester.

The Semester to Develop Thinking Power is temporarily operated only in schools that choose the Free Semester System. It is an educational curriculum aimed at expanding the purpose of the Free Semester by fostering thinking skills through discussions, cooperative classes, experiments and practical activities, project work, and activating essay-type evaluations.

Earlier in September, the Gyeonggi Office of Education surveyed all 655 middle schools in the jurisdiction regarding next year's semester operation policy, and 56 schools, accounting for 8.5%, chose the Free Semester System.

A Gyeonggi Office of Education official explained, "Before the implementation of the 2022 curriculum revision, which reduces the Free Year System to the Free Semester System and introduces a career-linked semester, schools will be allowed to choose the Free Semester System from next year to support stable operation," adding, "In schools that choose the Free Semester System, essay-type evaluations or performance assessments will be conducted according to the characteristics of the subjects."