Visitors play new online games at annual global games trade fair G-Star, which kicked off at BEXCO in Busan on Nov. 14, 2019. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 17 (Korea Bizwire) — A Meister High School which will train talented students to become leaders in South Korea’s gaming industry has been established.
Opening its doors Thursday in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, the Gyeonggi Game Meister High School is the first Meister High School in the country dedicating to the gaming sector.
The school was created as part of a collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Education, the Gyeonggido Office of Education and the city of Anyang.
The school will operate four classes per grade under a single department of “Game Development.” A total of 77 incoming students have been selected for the 2020 school year.
As the inaugural principal, Chung Suk-hee, chairman of the Korea Game Developers Association, was elected from a public recruiting process.
Reflecting the needs of the gaming industry, the school plans to carry out game projects by grade along with step-by-step game theory education.
In particular, the school will run a field-tailored curriculum by experimenting with a new type of industry-academic cooperation to attract gaming companies to idle spaces on campus.
Gyeonggi Province is expected to have active industry-academia cooperation between schools and companies as game companies are concentrated within the region.
The gaming industry is seen as a high-growth and it is expected to create a significant number of new jobs. The industry also contributes significantly to South Korea’s exports.
In 2018, gaming related exports rose 8.2 percent from 2017 to US$6.4 billion, accounting for 67 percent of the country’s content exports.
However, there have been calls for the development of systematic professionals at the site as the supply of manpower has failed to meet demand.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
