56 Foreign Exchange Students Enroll in Gyeongbuk High Schools for the First Time... From 5 Countries Including Vietnam, Thailand, and Mongolia

The Gyeongbuk Office of Education (Superintendent Lim Jong-sik) announced on the 17th that 56 international students from five countries have been finally admitted in the 2024 academic year high school entrance examination.

In the entrance examinations for Meister High Schools and Specialized High Schools, which are vocational high schools that announced their final successful candidates on November 1 and November 22 respectively, a total of 82 international students applied, of whom 48 were admitted.

Considering that this year is the first year the Gyeongbuk Office of Education has selected international students, the competition rate of 1.7 to 1 is evaluated as reflecting the considerable enthusiasm of international students.

Lim Jong-sik, Superintendent of Gyeongbuk Education Office, who visited Thailand (5th from the right), is shaking hands and taking a commemorative photo with Sompom Pandam, Deputy Minister of Vocational Education at the Thai Ministry of Education (5th from the left), after signing an agreement to cooperate for the admission of international students.

Among the 82 students who applied for the selection of international students in vocational high schools, the largest number of nationalities was Vietnamese with 37 students, followed by Mongolian with 25, Thai with 12, and Indonesian with 8.

Among them, the nationalities of the 48 final successful candidates were 28 Vietnamese, 8 Mongolian, 8 Thai, and 4 Indonesian.

The late high schools, which are scheduled to announce their final successful candidates on the 26th, also received admission documents from international students.

As a result, 7 Vietnamese and 1 Cambodian applied to autonomous private high schools in the province, and all have currently been admitted.

The Gyeongbuk Office of Education has been carrying out various projects related to attracting international students with the goal of actively responding to the shortage of skilled workers due to the decline in the school-age population and promoting the excellence of Gyeongbuk education to the world.

Above all, despite the increasing proportion of multicultural students and the difficult situation where many overseas students are already embraced in university (higher) education, efforts have been made to lead the way in attracting international students to secondary education.

As a result, it is interpreted that international students from various countries applied to high schools in Gyeongbuk Province in the first year of recruiting international students.

Superintendent Lim Jong-sik of the Gyeongbuk Office of Education said, “Now our Gyeongbuk education is moving beyond the standard of Korean education to the standard of world education,” and added, “We will actively carry out the international student recruitment project so that it can serve as an opportunity to promote the excellence of our education to the world and to foster skilled workers for local small and medium-sized enterprises.”

At the education plan announcement for the 2024 academic year on December 7, Superintendent Lim presented the slogan “Gyeongbuk Education, the Standard of World Education” and proposed the strategy “Be the first and new, achieve higher, and enjoy the widest” as a warm Gyeongbuk education’s path toward becoming the world education standard.