Korail Issues Service Contract for Student Placement Plan in Yongsan International Business District
No School Land, Plans to Establish Schools within Residential Facilities
Seoul City and Yongsan-gu Emphasize Need for Foreign Schools
"Attracting Global Companies, Residential Conditions Important... Foreign Schools Needed"
A plan to establish a school inside a building in the Yongsan International Business District is being promoted. Since there is no school site in the Yongsan International Business District, a ‘school complex’ plan is being considered to attract global companies and international organizations. However, it is expected that this will require overcoming the hurdle of legal amendments.
Commissioning of service for placement of students from 6,000 households
Korail commissioned last month the ‘Yongsan International Business District Urban Development Project Student Placement Plan Establishment and School Facility Pre-Planning Service.’ In this service, Korail required the derivation of △student number fluctuation forecasts △class number estimates △student placement alternatives. Regarding the student placement plan, alternatives such as placing students in nearby schools like Hangang Elementary and Namjeong Elementary, as well as school expansion and reconstruction, and promotion plans for school facility complexification were to be explored.
About 6,000 households are expected to move into the Yongsan International Business District. For this, a plan must be established to predict the number of students resulting from the district development and allocate them to schools. Once the nearby redevelopment projects around the Yongsan International Business District are completed, the number of students in the project area could increase significantly. A Korail official explained, "We need to derive the number of students based on 6,000 households, and along with dispersing them to surrounding schools, we must also consider expansion, reconstruction, and school complexification. Coordination with the education office and others is necessary."
No school site, but promoting ‘residential + school’ introduction
In particular, this service reviews the school complexification plan that places apartments and schools in one building. Seoul City and Yongsan-gu are promoting plans to establish foreign schools or unlicensed international schools for the children of employees of international organizations and multinational companies in the Yongsan International Business District. However, Seoul City and Korail did not separately plan school sites during the development planning process of the Yongsan International Business District. Accordingly, they are considering placing schools inside buildings in the business support zone.
However, to do this, related laws must be amended to include apartments among the facilities that can be built together with schools. School complexification refers to installing facilities such as public and cultural sports facilities and parking lots that residents can use together with the school, allowing joint use. Under current law, school complex facilities include public and cultural sports facilities, parking lots, and lifelong education facilities.
In this regard, Representative Hwang Hee of the Democratic Party and others proposed an amendment on the 24th of last month to include apartments within the scope of school complex facilities. Representative Hwang stated, "Including apartments in the scope of school complex facilities aims to enable various school facility design attempts, such as establishing small-scale schools in large cities."
A Yongsan-gu official said, "School sites were omitted while promoting the Yongsan International Business District as a complex development, but according to the plan prepared by Seoul City, an educational research institute is planned to be located on some floors of a building with an area of 15,000㎡ (4,537 pyeong)," adding, "If the law is amended, it could be utilized."
The city expects that, based on legal amendments, foreign schools can be established inside buildings in the business support zone. Unlicensed international schools can be established without legal amendments. For example, the British School in Tokyo, a British international school, opened in August last year in Azabudai Hills, Tokyo, and currently operates with about 700 students. Seoul City and Korail plan to establish a student placement plan before the approval of the implementation plan.
A Seoul City official explained, "We will actively attract international schools and reflect them in related plans. When global companies consider moving into the international business district, living conditions are the most important. We are also considering attracting well-known international schools."
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