The measure came out of a sense of crisis that the number of specialized high school students will continue to decrease. (image: Chungbuk Energy High School)
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Starting in 2021, students at specialized high schools in Seoul will be required to take artificial intelligence (AI) courses at school.
According to a plan unveiled Tuesday by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, 10 of the specialized high schools in Seoul, or 14 percent, will be converted to AI and Big Data high schools between 2021 and 2024.
The education office will provide 300 million won (US$256,320) to each of these schools in facility construction funding and give priority to the selection of targets for equipment purchases and environment improvement projects in the future.
In addition, from 2021, all specialized high school curriculums will be required to provide more than three units, or 51 hours of related subjects for the purpose of training students AI technology.
To that end, the education office plans to develop “AI and Future Society” textbooks by August 2020, and create two textbooks each year for basic and working-level subjects in Fourth Industrial Revolution fields from 2020 to 2024.
The measure came out of a sense of crisis that the number of specialized high school students will continue to decrease, and that the number of students who are reluctant to work due to unemployment will continue.
“The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a major crisis and at the same time turning point for specialized vocational high school,” said Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.
“We will change the education system for specialized high schools to suit the times.”
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
