Seongnam City Launches Learning Assistant Program, Recruiting 80 Middle and High School Students and 80 University Students

One-on-One Matching
Support for Learning Desired Subjects Such as English and Mathematics

On January 15, Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province announced that it will implement a "Learning Assistant Program" to support underprivileged middle and high school students. The program matches each student one-on-one with a university or graduate student, allowing them to receive help in subjects of their choice, such as English or mathematics.

Seongnam City Hall exterior view. Provided by Seongnam City

To this end, the city will recruit a total of 160 participants, including 80 middle and high school students and 80 university or graduate students, until January 23.

Eligible middle and high school students include those living in Seongnam who are from basic livelihood security recipient families, lower-income households, legally recognized single-parent families, multicultural families, North Korean defector families, as well as out-of-school youth.

University or graduate students must have their resident registration in Seongnam as of the announcement date (January 14) to apply as learning assistants. Students on a leave of absence are not eligible to apply.

Students wishing to participate in the program should submit the application form, transcript from the previous academic year, self-introduction letter, and other required documents to their local community administrative welfare center.

The city will select participants by comprehensively reviewing their grades and self-introduction letters, and then match middle and high school students with university or graduate students based on their preferred subjects.

The selected middle and high school students will be able to learn their desired subjects from university student learning assistants at a location of their choice, for at least two hours per session and up to 16 hours per month, during the program period (February to November).

University or graduate students who serve as learning assistants will receive an activity allowance of up to 400,000 won per month (25,000 won per hour) for tutoring middle school students, and up to 480,000 won per month (30,000 won per hour) for tutoring high school students.

A Seongnam City official stated, "This program has been implemented for 12 consecutive years since 2015 to bridge the learning gap among underprivileged middle and high school students and to expand social participation of local university and graduate students."