Goheung County Educational Development Special Zone: Fostering Local Talent Where Learning Leads to Settlement

Goheung County in South Jeolla Province announced that since being designated as a pilot area for the Ministry of Education's "Educational Development Special Zone" in August last year, it has been implementing education innovation policies that reflect local conditions and specialized industries under the slogan "Learning Embracing the World, Challenging the Universe." As a result, the special zone project is now fully underway.

Goheung County plans to invest a total of 12.7 billion KRW, including special grants, local government funds, and the education office budget, to operate detailed projects in the special zone's education sector through 2028. Through these initiatives, the county aims to comprehensively improve local conditions for education, care, career development, and settlement. Local governments, education support offices, universities, and companies will all participate to strengthen the system for nurturing local talent in specialized industries.

Goheung County Office_Building Exterior.

Based on a collaborative system involving Goheung Education Support Office and public-private-academic-industry partnerships, the county is focusing on establishing a virtuous cycle where students "learn and grow locally, find employment or start businesses locally, and ultimately settle locally." Meaningful results are being accumulated throughout the operation of the special zone.

The direction of Goheung County's Educational Development Special Zone is to foster talent through specialized education centered on the region's strengths in aerospace, drones, and smart farms, while also strengthening settlement infrastructure by integrating education, care, and lifelong learning.

In the aerospace and drone sectors, the county is utilizing scientific infrastructure such as the Naro Space Center, National Youth Space Center, and Goheung Drone Center to expand career exploration and hands-on learning. In the smart farm sector, the focus is on enhancing practical skills through hands-on and field-based educational programs, in collaboration with Goheung Smart Farm Innovation Valley and the National Suncheon University Green Smart Farm Goheung Campus.

In particular, the "Goheung Space Exploration Team" project is a core program that guides students toward careers in aerospace through a series of activities such as integrated middle and high school aerospace education, visits to aerospace companies, university career experience camps, and field trips to advanced aerospace countries, helping them grow into "glocal" aerospace science talents.

Additionally, the county plans to strengthen the local settlement base through community-supported care and growth initiatives, including the construction of school-complex facilities as care-centered education and cultural infrastructure, the development and operation of joint curricula linked with local resources, and the operation of family-stay rural and fishing village study communities.

Through these efforts, Goheung County intends to steadily establish itself as a future-oriented education city where learning leads to settlement, and to actively foster innovative talents who will lead future society.

County Governor Gong Youngmin stated, "The Educational Development Special Zone is a project designed and implemented jointly by all education stakeholders to ensure that learning leads to career development and settlement. The administration, educational institutions, and schools are working together as one team toward the common goal of educational innovation in Goheung," adding, "We will provide education linked to local specialized industries and tangible support such as university tuition assistance, so that our students can learn and grow in Goheung with a solid foundation."

Meanwhile, to ease the financial burden of local university students and ensure continuity in their studies, Goheung County will launch a "University Tuition Support" project starting this year. Excluding national scholarships, students will receive up to 2 million KRW per semester for up to eight semesters. The county will also provide living support scholarships for low-income university students and financial support for overseas studies in the aerospace and smart farm sectors.