Suwon has set "education-centered city development and talent cultivation" as its top policy priority for this year, securing a site for Suwon Art High School establishment and investing a total of 106 billion won in educational infrastructure expansion.
▲ Specialized High School Establishment and Competitions
Suwon Art High School (tentatively planned for Homae District or Youngtong-dong), with a target opening in March 2009, is being established with a scale of 240 students across 4 departments and 6 classes: 2 music classes, 2 fine arts classes, 1 drama/film class, and 1 dance class. (Total of 18 classes with 7,200 students)
In relation to this, Gyeonggi Province Office of Education required the submission of a memorandum of understanding for specialized high school establishment by December 15 of last year. Suwon plans to establish the Suwon Art High School establishment plan by late February and complete site selection and specialized high school establishment agreements.
Accordingly, the city will secure school land within this year and begin construction on the art high school in March next year, with plans to complete facilities construction and open the art high school in March 2009.
A city official stated, "By March, we plan to conclude a specialized high school establishment agreement with the Provincial Office of Education that includes basic plans containing the art high school site location, department scale, and related information."
Additionally, the city will hold for the first time this year competitions to discover and nurture gifted students in mathematics, science, and essay writing.
The city-sponsored competitions include the "Suwon Essay Writing Competition" targeting elementary and middle school students within the city in May-June, and the "Mathematics and Science Competition (for middle school students)" in June.
The competitions co-hosted by the city and Suwon Office of Education as an educational cooperation project will be held in two rounds: preliminary school representative selection and elementary and secondary divisions, with a reading competition also scheduled during the school library festival in October.
▲ Educational Infrastructure Expansion and Lifelong Learning City Development
Suwon provided support for 298 projects totaling 22.9 billion won in educational infrastructure expansion last year. This year, the city has allocated 383 projects with 10.68 billion won in the main budget.
Educational infrastructure expansion projects include school meal facility support, school gymnasiums and athletic fields, sports facility support, and native English teacher and language laboratory support to expand foreign language education.
Additionally, as part of specialized education support projects, the city will support library, science laboratory, and information technology room facilities, and plans to hold essay writing, mathematics and science competitions twice in the first and second half, as well as college entrance examination briefings for test-takers.
In the lifelong learning city development sector, the city will conduct needs surveys targeting 116 lifelong learning facilities within the city according to the basic plan to establish networks, and will execute and operate inter-agency councils and facility/institution agreements for lifelong education network construction.
Kim Yong-deok, head of the Education Support Team at Suwon's Department of Sports and Youth, explained, "We will prepare supplementary budgets going forward to provide additional support for educational infrastructure expansion at schools throughout the city."
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