Education authorities and public-sector experts in Gangwon Province are engaged in open debate on a range of education innovation models, drawing on the province's established rural study-abroad infrastructure, tailored career guidance, public online lecture services and peer counseling programs — with a focus on creating integrated pathways across early childhood, elementary and secondary education.
The provincial Office of Education is hosting a joint workshop Friday at its education research institute, bringing together local governments and education support offices from all 18 cities and counties in the province to develop proposals for the Ministry of Education's education innovation leading-region program.
The workshop was organized to identify a Gangwon-style education innovation model suited to the region's conditions and characteristics, in line with the ministry's open call.
The education innovation leading-region initiative is a policy under which education support offices, local governments and communities collaborate to build locally tailored education innovation models and foster sustainable regional education ecosystems. In areas experiencing population decline, the focus is on revitalizing small schools as a core strategy for strengthening local education capacity, with communities given the autonomy to design and pursue models that fit their own circumstances.
"The education innovation leading-region program is a model of educational cooperation that goes beyond changing schools to jointly designing the future of communities," Superintendent Kang Sam-young said. "Based on close collaboration with education support offices, local governments and communities, we will work to build a Gangwon-specific education innovation model and do our utmost to overcome the crisis of regional extinction."
At the workshop, Gangwon education experts are discussing three models: career special zones, which involve running region-specific career-focused education programs; multi-campus hubs, which would create integrated educational spaces linking early childhood, elementary, middle and high schools at regional centers; and rural study-abroad programs, which would operate residential rural study-abroad base schools.
The provincial Office of Education plans to strengthen consulting and administrative and fiscal support to help education support offices and local governments jointly draft operational plans, and to actively assist each region's tailored applications through a dedicated task force and expert consulting team.
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