On Aug 30, the Ministry of Education of Korea released a draft of the ‘2022 Revised Curriculum’. The new curriculum will be applied in stages, starting from the first and second grades of elementary school in 2024 and the first grade of middle and high school in 2025. The Ministry is planning to finalize it within this year after collecting the opinions of parents and teachers.
According to this new curriculum, the number of hours for Korean language subjects in the first and second grades of elementary school will increase by 34 hours over two years from the 448 hours to 482 hours. This is a measure to enhance young Korean students’ basic literacy skills by promoting Korean language education in the early stages of education.
In addition, based on this new curriculum, media literacy subjects such as ‘Literature and Video’, ‘Media and Communication’ will be introduced as elective subjects in high schools. Also, writing education will be promoted through new elective courses including ‘Reading and Writing’ and “Reading Discussion and Writing” whose aim is to improve students’ writing skills.
With respect to English language education, its four functional classification, including ‘speaking, listening, writing, and reading’, will be reorganized into ‘understanding’ and ‘expression’. Also, it is planned to create a variety of elective English language related subjects such as ‘Media English’, ‘World Culture and English’, and ‘English Presentation and Discussion’.
With regard to social studies, a number of practical and future-oriented elective courses will be included in the high school curriculum. ‘Financial and economic life’ is one of those courses. Since existing economics courses were theory-centered and difficult, students were often reluctant to lectures. Accordingly, it was decided to create a ‘finance’-related courses that can provide economic knowledge necessary for real life. ‘Climate Change and a Sustainable World’ will also be added as one of the elective courses.
The science curriculum will also be restructured in order for students to obtain ‘convergent thinking’ skills. It is decided to get away from providing the same amount of education for physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences in elementary and middle schools and revise those subjects for each school and grade level accordingly. The number of science-related elective subjects in high schools will be increased from four courses to 8 courses in consideration of the students’ aptitude and career path.
As the new high school credit system is fully implemented from 2025, the class hours will also be adjusted. The total amount of class hours in high schools will be reduced from the current total of 2890 hours to 2720 hours. For Korean, Math, and English, the class hours per subject will be reduced by 35 hours from the current 141.7 hours to 106.7 hours.
The Ministry of Education will collect public opinions on this published proposal for 15 days until the 13th of next month. It will be finalized by the National Board of Education after a public hearing.
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