‘Education key to economic growth’

GYEONGJU — South Korea’s top educator Lee Ju-ho said Tuesday educational cooperation between APEC member economies is the key to achieving shared economic growth in the region.

He also stressed that educational cooperation should not be limited to just information exchange, but rather focus on promoting collective and common goals for the prosperity of Asia Pacific countries.

“In the past, we reached agreements on what to do. Here, we should discuss the question of how,” Lee said in a keynote speech at the APEC Education Ministerial Meeting in Gyeongju. “Specific directions for future educational cooperation and a roadmap for its development must be discussed.”

He urged countries to vitalize joint research and conferences to understand the needs of each country and learn about the best practices and success factors of educational cooperation.

He also stressed the importance of increasing people-to-people exchanges between countries to build cooperative partnerships.

“Korea is a good example of how education can successfully contribute to economic growth,” Lee said. “Many people describe Korea’s economic development as a miracle, unique and sometimes unusual. However, people familiar with Korea’s development experience would understand it was not a miracle and that education was the driving force.”

He introduced Korea’s major education programs. He said the country is currently focusing on building a technology-based learning environment and developing new teaching methods centered on creativity and character building of students.

“Creativity and character education can lead to creating new knowledge and new solutions for problems. That’s because, in the globalized knowledge-based world, we must engage, exchange and collaborate with each other,” Lee said.

The three-day meeting drew up to 600 participants, including chief education policymakers from 21 APEC member economies. Before the closing ceremony today, the APEC members will issue a joint statement to put their agreements into action and vitalize educational exchanges.

APEC Secretariat Executive Director Muhamad Noor said cultivating APEC’s vast human capital through education is a critical component to long-term economic growth.

“Together, our economies account for 40 percent of the world’s population — or a significant 2.7 billion people — so what APEC does today will have a considerable impact tomorrow,” Noor said.

He called for the need to improve teachers’ instructional capacity to make better use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) so that these technologies can be used effectively to facilitate the learning of higher-level skills needed for the 21st-century workforce.

“ICT has become a tool for social and economic change. Enhancing the use of ICT in education will, no doubt, contribute to more innovative and inclusive growth across the APEC region,” Noor said.

President Lee Myung-bak, in a welcoming message, said Korea was able to improve individual abilities by investing in education.

“There is no doubt that parents’ enthusiasm for their children’s education enabled the country’s economic prosperity. The improved individual ability led to political, cultural and economic development,” Lee said. <Korea Times/Na Jeong-ju>

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