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Doubts grow over Seoul’s IT-based ‘Future School’

By Yoon Min-sik

Smart education project may fall flat without proper planning, experts and teachers say



As Seoul prepares to implement “smart education,” an information technology-based education system, education circles voiced concerns that the plan may be rushed and lacks substance.

Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education is pushing to kick off its Mirae Hakgyo (Future School) project in 2016. Future School centers on developing a new education program that uses cloud computing and smart devices to enhance student participation, rather than traditional lecturing.

“Right now, most schools using smart education look exactly the same, which is not our goal,” a Seoul official in charge of the Future School project told The Korea Herald.

“There are unique environments depending on the subject and the teaching methods of each teacher. The education system will focus on training students to educate themselves proactively, to cooperate with each other and be creative.”

The fancy rhetoric and idealistic approach, however, seems hollow without a clear road map and heaps of what-ifs looming over the project.

“What is Future School? I don’t think the officials themselves have a clear idea. How can a handful of companies working with Seoul officials come up with a plan (for smart education) in such a short period of time?” said Mun Kyung-min, a Seoul-based teacher and a member of local civic group Good Teachers Organization.

The group recently released a statement calling Seoul’s Mirae School project a “failure waiting to happen.”

The official from the Seoul education office said he could not comment on how the future school will be operated because its development is in its infant phase. He also said the education office does not yet have a definite curriculum.

Officials will work with some 20 incumbent teachers next year to set up the curriculum, he said. The development process will be conducted in the form of a “ghost school,” in which teachers will test the new education methods on themselves, not the students.

“It just shows you how disconnected the policy is from reality,” said Lee Bohm, a former education policy adviser for former Seoul education chief Kwak No-hyun. “Twenty? Even if the program involved 200 teachers, it won’t even be enough.”

While officials have constantly emphasized that they will not take the top-down approach, people in the education circles have pointed to the lack of teacher participation in the program.

“The Seoul education office will just vaguely say that they’ve discussed the matter with the teachers. But 20 out of thousands of teachers is just not enough,” said another teacher at a Seoul-based school who wished to remain anonymous.

Lee said the technology-based teaching platforms in other nations, such as Israel’s Time To Know program, involved thousands of teachers over extended period of time. They also presented extended number of options for teachers to choose from, which helps them develop variety of teaching methods.

Because the Future School is being developed over such a short period of time and only involves a handful of teachers, education experts stress that it has an innate danger of becoming a top-down policy that forces teachers just to follow blindly.

Seoul education officials said if the smart education turns out to be ineffective, they may pull back the project. But they were vague on how to cope with the side effects of the program.

“Experimental schools, by definition, only participate in the project for the limited time. The problem is that once the program is over, all the accomplishments will be all for naught,” Lee said.

A teacher at a Gangwon Province middle school that participated in the government’s digital textbook project in 2012 and 2013 said the school was cut off from using the new textbooks immediately after the project ended.

“This kind of new technology needs consistent exposure,” he said. “If the government is serious about expanding the program, they should keep supporting the schools. Otherwise, the effects will be lost.”

Experts and teachers also mentioned health issues. Frequent exposure to electromagnetic waves from the machines and smartphone addiction are only some of the potential risks for students.

Such pronounced emphasis toward smart education may be motivated by factors other than education, some claimed.

“The intent (of the Future School) is very political. It is to show off something that looks good for the upcoming election,” Lee said. 

Seoul’s education chief Moon Yong-rin has made it clear that the smart education project will be one of his key policies in his second term, if he wins in the June election. Moon has said smart education is “an issue faced by the entire world.”

“There are plenty of teaching methods that have been proven effective. Why is there so much focus on smart education?” Mun of the Good Teacher Organization said. “Officials are seeking the demonstration effect. The project makes it look like they’re actually doing something.”

(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)