Population and Youth Policy Officer Elevated to Population and Youth Immigration Bureau
Full Effort to Attract National Medical Schools... Task Force Established for Promotion Team
Jeonnam Province has rolled up its sleeves to systematically respond to the risk of regional extinction.
On the 21st, the province announced its organizational restructuring plan for the second half of 2023.
The focus was on population, youth, immigration, the province's biggest issue of attracting a medical school, and securing global competitiveness in higher education through attracting foreign students.
As a measure to overcome population decline and the risk of local extinction, the existing ‘Population and Youth Policy Division’ will be upgraded to the ‘Population, Youth, and Immigration Bureau (Grade 3 TF)’, and the ‘Population Policy Department’, ‘Youth Hope Department’, and ‘Immigration Policy Department’ will be additionally established to accelerate policies on population, youth, and immigration.
In line with the government’s immigration policy, including the establishment of the Immigration and Immigration Management Agency (hereafter ‘Immigration Agency’) as a countermeasure to overcome the population cliff, Jeonnam Province plans to proactively respond to government policies and population issues by establishing the ‘Immigration Policy Department’ to attract the Immigration Agency and support immigrant settlement.
Earlier, Governor Kim Young-rok proposed the establishment of the Immigration Agency to Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon, who visited Jeonnam Province in July, and expressed his intention to attract the Immigration Agency on the 17th.
The province also plans to encourage frontline cities and counties to establish and expand related organizations to align population response policy directions between the province and local governments and cooperate organically.
Additionally, to fully commit to the long-standing wish of Jeonnam residents for 30 years to attract a national medical school and improve medical vulnerability, a ‘Medical School Attraction Promotion Team (Grade 4 TF)’ will be established under the Health and Welfare Bureau to actively respond.
Furthermore, the ‘University Innovation Promotion Team (TF)’, established to build a regional-university co-growth system, will be converted into a formal organization called the ‘University Innovation Department’, and a new team (Global Talent Team) will be created, expanding to a three-team system along with the existing University Policy Team and University Support Team.
Although 3,515 foreign students are residing in 17 regional universities, this accounts for only 2% compared to 180,124 nationwide, with most concentrated in the metropolitan area, causing serious regional imbalance. To proactively respond to the population decline crisis by leading the attraction of foreign students, the ‘Global Talent Team’ will be newly established.
The ‘University Innovation Department’ plans to promote regionally tailored strategies for university innovation in cooperation with local universities, including the full-scale establishment of the Regional Innovation-Centered University Support System (RISE), support for fostering Suncheon National University as a Glocal University, and additional support for selecting universities within the province starting in 2024.
Park Hyun-sik, Director of the Jeonnam Provincial Government’s Autonomous Administration Bureau, said, “Population issues cause economic crises due to the decline in the working-age population and are a major factor determining the survival of the region. Through the establishment of the Population, Youth, and Immigration Bureau, we will consolidate the province’s capabilities and proactively respond to overcome the population crisis.”
Jeonnam Province plans to collect opinions until the 27th through a legislative notice to make the currently TF-operated ‘University Innovation Promotion Team’ and ‘Unification Plus Promotion Team’ under the Autonomous Administration Bureau permanent organizations as the ‘University Innovation Department’ and ‘Unification Plus Center’, respectively. The ‘Population, Youth, and Immigration Bureau’ will initially operate as a TF and later be established as a formal organization through future organizational restructuring.
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