Providing Essential Facilities for Residents, a 'Win-Win' New Model
Pilot Operation of Pohang and Gyeongbuk Leading District Designation
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] On the 3rd, Pohang City signed a business agreement at Pohang High School under the Ministry of Education to facilitate the smooth promotion and activation support of the ‘Pohang Area School Facility Complex Project’.
Pohang City Signs Agreement for School Facility Complexification to Promote Coexistence Between Students and Local Residents. (From left: Nam Gun-hyun, Director of Ulleung Education Support Office; Shin Dong-geun, Director of Pohang Education Support Office; Lim Jong-sik, Superintendent of Gyeongbuk Provincial Office of Education; Lee Ju-ho, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education; Kim Byung-wook, Member of the National Assembly; Kim Hak-hong, Deputy Governor of Gyeongbuk Province; Lee Kang-deok, Mayor of Pohang; Nam Han-kwon, Ulleung County Governor)
For this agreement, eight heads of institutions participated, including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Juho Lee, Mayor Kangdeok Lee, National Assembly member Byungwook Kim, Deputy Governor of Gyeongbuk Province Hakhong Kim, Superintendent of Gyeongbuk Provincial Office of Education Jongsik Lim, and Ulleung County Governor Hangwon Nam.
The ‘School Facility Complex Project’ is a new model of school facilities designed to address issues such as regional community extinction and school consolidation due to the decline in school-age population. It installs cultural, sports, and welfare facilities necessary for education and local residents’ lives on school idle land, allowing students and local residents to use them together, thereby organically linking and coexisting with the community centered on the school.
Through this agreement, efforts will be made together to create internal and external conditions for designating and pilot-operating Pohang City as a leading district for the Gyeongbuk Province School Complex Facility Project, sharing data and information among institutions, and securing various investment resources.
As a plan (draft) for the Pohang area school facility complex project, Yeonil Elementary School and Donghae Elementary School will establish indoor survival swimming pools for students and resident sports facilities (such as swimming pools) to improve residents’ quality of life. At Guryongpo Elementary School and Yanghak Middle School, underground public parking lots will be constructed to alleviate parking difficulties near tourist attractions and downtown areas, and close cooperation among the agreement institutions will be maintained for this purpose.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Juho Lee said, “The School Facility Complex Project is a region-customized project to restore local vitality as part of the Yoon Seok-yeol administration’s education reform. We will strive to expand the project nationwide in the future.”
Mayor Lee said, “This agreement is expected to bring various effects such as improving school education conditions, enhancing residents’ leisure life, and resolving parking difficulties. We will actively work to improve the welfare of students and local residents through close cooperation with related institutions.”
At the agreement ceremony, Pohang Mayor Kangdeok Lee also requested active support for the designation of an education freedom zone for balanced regional development led by the local community in the era of decentralization and fostering global talents for future new growth foundations, the increase of medical school quotas and approval for establishing a medical school for POSTECH research-centered medical education innovation and training of physician-scientists based on digital science and technology, and the establishment of an international school, a foreign educational institution, within the Pohang Convergence Technology Industrial Complex.
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