Questions/Answers

Every child has the right to learn, but not all children are assured of the same level of education. Such a gap in education causes huge social problems in Korea in particular. The gap in education resulted from the low income level of parents affects the employment status and income levels of their children after they reach adulthood, which leads to a vicious cycle where poverty is passed on from one generation to the next. In addition, educational inequality is more serious in rural regions than in urban areas, because the lack of basic education in rural regions is also associated with this issue. According to the results of a survey, the rate of local students suffering from underachievement or illiteracy was 1.4% in 2017 and 3.4% in 2018, and it showed that the problem of underachievement in local schools is getting worse. local governments and residents made joint efforts to solve the problem. Experts from diverse fields, including children welfare experts, educationalists, and public officials, put their heads together with local residents, and decided to hire unemployed youths as teachers for the Dream Ladder Study Room Project. The Dream-Ladder Study Room Project has been carried out since 2017 to eliminate the vicious cycle caused by educational inequalities a) Aims to ensure the basic and fundamental academic ability of the underprivileged children b) Satisfy educational needs of children who rarely have an opportunity to learn due to financial difficulty c) Encourage youths to contribute to the local communities 4) Provide youths with financial support for their job seeking or job.

The Dream Ladder Study Room Project aims to improve the educational environment for local students in need. Young teachers at 150 local children's centers help improve students' academic achievement so that they are able to catch up with classes in school and also try to satisfy educational needs of children who cannot afford to gain access to additional educational services.

This project, which provides unprivileged children with an opportunity to develop their academic abilities and at the same time offers jobs to unemployed youths, is in line with 4 Sustainable Development Goals. As the improvement of academic ability of the underprivileged likely roots out the inheritance of poverty from generation to generation, (SDG1) “End poverty in all its forms everywhere” is to be realized. This project also has close relationship with (SDG4) “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education”, in that it strives to enhance literacy for all the youths. Providing jobs for unemployed youths along with vocational training opportunities and giving a jobs are associated with (SDG8) “Full and productive employment and decent work for all” Our efforts to address educational inequality by income level contribute to realizing (SDG10) “Reduce inequality within and among countries.

This project promotes participation from private sectors so as to ensure its long-term feasibility. Making use of social media, promotional video clips, and leaflets, it has been able to attract more interest from local residents. Retired public officials and youth experts have drawn up plans for training courses and given lectures to the selected young teachers. The government has secured the budget for this project, and also has signed a memorandum of understanding for effective operations with cities and counties that manage local children's centers. Children and young teachers engaged continue to express high satisfaction.

This project sheds light on the educational inequality issue. The widening educational gap between urban and rural areas is hard to narrow down only with formal school education. In particular, a survey has shown that 2% of local elementary school students in third to sixth grade cannot read Korean, while the percentage of their nationwide peer group accounted for only 1.7%. underachievement student have difficulty in understanding regular school classes, which aggravates educational inequalities. To solve those problems, the government established the plan for Dream Ladder Study Room Project in 2017. After a trial run of 1,000 children, it complemented the defect and expanded the target to 2,200 children. Preparations for this project as follows; 1)Well-educated youths residing in each region are selected through a strict three-stage screening process. 2)Selected candidates learn about the qualities needed to become educators through counseling from present schoolteachers, and complete training sessions. 3)Tasked with helping children develop their basic academic abilities, teachers are matched with children's centers one by one. 4)Potential problems are identified based on the results of the monitoring system and the semi-annual satisfaction survey; countermeasures are prepared ;the scale of the project is gradually expanded.

In poor families, girls have less likelihood of getting an education than boys. This is because Korea, which has an old patriarchal system, still remains an old custom to give preferential treatment to men. This project provides assistance to young women, who have not been able to make use of their abilities due to their brothers. Under the project, young female could have a chance to improve their basic academic abilities, as well as get a education(prior learning or foreign language). This guarantees equal education opportunities for all children and young women are able to receive support in learning.

This project is aimed at teenagers in low-income households who attend local children's center. Subject to the Child Welfare Law, local children's centers take care of children with diverse backgrounds, including children raised by grandparents or born to multi-cultural families. Many of those children have difficulty in reading and writing Korean, because they can hardly receive a proper education at home. Young teachers helped improve their fundamental academic abilities through one-on-one teaching. This project changed participating children's attitudes towards learning, as well as improved their learning performances. With the help of teaching assistants, children who had been unwilling to study experienced the feeling of achievement through individual education, and they also set their goals with dreams about future. The change extended to children’s attitudes. Unconfident child came to express himself proudly, and a child who had been distracted and erratic turned into a calm personality.

This project hires unemployed and well-educated youths as young teachers for local children's centers so as to improve children's basic and fundamental academic abilities. It aims to provide support for underprivileged teenagers, as well as to ease education gap by income level. The project was planned to be expanded gradually by evaluating previous year’s achievement. 1,000 students benefited from this project in 2017; 1,500 students in 2018; and 2,200 students in 2019. The number of beneficiary is planned to be gradually increase until all teenagers living in 22 local governments in Jeollanamdo Provincial Goverment receive benefits. For better management and operations, young teachers' daily work logs and attendance records are examined and on-site visits are implemented frequently. The satisfaction survey of participating students is conducted twice a year in order to set up guidelines for the next year and expand the project. In 2017, three institutions made a business agreement, jointly established operational guidelines, and selected a total of 67 young teachers. Young teachers were assigned to each city and county, and received regular monitoring, which showed the need for supplementary education. Supplementary education sessions were created afterwards. According to the results of the 2017 satisfaction survey, 85% of young teachers expressed their satisfaction with their work. Thus, 100 young teachers were hired in the next year. The satisfaction rate in 2018 increased by 5% compared to the previous year, reaching 94%. As a result, 150 young teachers were hired this year. This project has been widely recognized as an excellent business model.

At the beginning, the local children support center picked up applicants, and then the candidates were matched with children's centers by local public offices. Since the subjects of selection and placement were different, Some candidates gave up after the placement because their personal conditions (distance from residence, working hours, etc.) were not reflected. The system was reorganized to solve such problems. the support center carried out both. In this way, young teachers were able to work at the place fit their circumstances, less people quit midway through, and closer relationships could be created between young teachers and children.

This project is innovative because solutions to eliminate the blind spot in public services have been reached by joint efforts with private sectors. Local governments and the private sector have collaborated to come up with the way to provide educational services for children suffering from underachievement. In addition, this project utilizes local resources. The global Youth Unemployment Rate, which has reached 13.1% in 2016, shows that most countries have the youth unemployment issue. Unemployed youths in the local area work as young teachers for children under this project, which could settle the two issues; youth unemployment and child welfare, simultaneously.

The Dream Ladder Study Room is Korea's first Project to deal with youth unemployment and children welfare. It has in common with the state-run child welfare teacher system in that both programs are involved with children welfare. However, child welfare teachers simply provide care for children rather than helping children develop their basic academic abilities, and one teacher has to take care of a number of centers. Jeollanam-do is the only local government that runs a measure to match one teaching assistant to each center and promote students' academic achievement, as well as offer jobs to local youths.

No, the initiative has not been transferred to other countries or regions.

Unfortunately, projects of the same kind with Dream Ladder Study Room cannot be found in any other region but Jeollanam-do. Many of countries and local governments have the problem of unemployment among young people along with educational inequalities resulted from different financial circumstances. This project suggests a solution to both the educational services issues and the youth unemployment problem. As this project only requires competent young talents, a certain amount of money, and a small number of operational staffs, it can be applied to other regions. The Dream Ladder Study Room made young people, who had been looking for jobs in other regions, get also interested in local jobs, which prevented outflows of the young population into large cities. In circumstances where they communicate and interact effectively with young teachers, students are more motivated to learn. Students, who didn't show lots of interest in learning before, are so passionate now and try to study hard.

The general budget of the Government and cities and counties was utilized. The budget was mainly invested in personnel expenses, operation expenses, salaries for the young teachers, and training expenses. Young teachers work 4 hours a day, so their pay includes additional welfare expenses calculated by the hour. Youths are the major participants at this project, but child experts, educationalists, social welfare workers, and many more people from diverse private sectors, have contributed to policy making and opening training courses for young teachers. local children's centers, which are subject to the law, are utilized as the venue for this project.

For consistent management, We focused on drawing up social consensus and securing personnel dedicated to the project. Experts and local residents discussed the project. The team was established with specialists in education who have experience in social welfare in order to provide proper care for children with diverse backgrounds at local centers. In addition, an ordinance about the obligation to support underpriviledged children in developing their basic academic abilities, as well as social and emotional skills, was enacted. To ensure stable funding, the consultation for this project at national level is currently underway, and it has been receiving positive reviews.

Yes

Satisfaction surveys are conducted twice a year. The heads of local children's centers, young teachers and students at the centers participate in the survey. It has received excellent reviews in the Government's evaluation of selecting excellent initiatives each year. This assessment consisted of a primary examination by the internal personnel and a secondary examination by the external personnel. This project has earned positive reviews from local residents too. After being informed of the state and achievement of the project, local residents visited the sites, and gave high marks for its validity and effectiveness.

The ‘Excellent Policy Assessment' singles out the most influential policy on residents' lives. Standard of evaluation include creativity(20%), contribution to the development of provincial administration(20%), degree of commitment(20%), ripple effects(20%), and benefits for residents in the province(20%). The '2017 On-site Evaluation by Resident Evaluation Group' was conducted by local residents, reviewing a total of 5 criteria; contribution to the development of provincial administration(20%), validity(20%), degree of commitment(20%), effectiveness(20%), and level of satisfaction(20%). Scores for each component were tallied, and the total score was used to select the excellent policy model.

According to the satisfaction survey in 2018, 94% of 2,406 respondents said they were satisfied. The percentage of students, who showed some improvement in their learning abilities after studying with young teachers reached 71%. On top of that, lots of unquantifiable but significant changes were observed, such as positive changes in children's attitudes and their improved mental stability. In the early stages, young teachers with little teaching experience had a lot of difficulties in educating children. To solve this problem, young teachers took supplementary education courses on a regularly, and also received counseling from current teachers, after they were matched with children centers. With sincere advice from current teachers, young teachers could find effective solutions for their difficulties, and their teaching ability made remarkable improvement. satisfaction for project increased as years go by; in 2017, 89% of them expressed satisfaction, and then in 2018 the percentage went up to 94%. During the same period of time, the number of participating children was increased from 1,000 to 2,200 too. Over 80% of participants are willing to join again, and so this project has been expanded year by year in light of lots of demand for its continuous operation.

Cooperation was required to start off the project. We asked cities and counties, where children centers belong; organizations to run the project; and the Government to implement general management for cooperation, but the consultation process was not easy. Few private organizations volunteered to participate in a non-profitable Project. We considered the Local Children Support Center to be the right entity to undertake the project, given that the group has good understanding of the present state and features of local children's centers and children at the centers, but the group rejected our request. City and county officials, authorities at the government, the Local Children Support Center group, educationalists, and local residents gathered together a number of times to share their opinions about the significance of the project, how much interest residents have in the project, the importance of participation, and difficulties in implementation. As a result of discussions, the tasks were equally divided as follows; the provincial government was to recruit young teacher, as well as to draw up the budget; cities and counties were to recommend the beneficiaries of the project; and the support center was tasked with operating the project and running supplementary education sessions.

People from diverse fields were involved in every stage of this project, from planning and implementation to evaluation. This project was conducted as part of the 'Civic Participatory Service Design Team' program, which engaged people with different interests, including experts, local residents, and public officials in the policy design process. Local residents, heads of children centers, teachers, and the Support Center joined, in the process of asking for cooperation, and shared opinions about the implementation of the project so as to divide tasks and also to come up with operational guidelines. During the enforcement of the project, former and current teachers, authorities in private education, child experts, welfare specialists, and youths joined their efforts to develop training courses for young teachers. The project surveys participants' level of satisfaction twice a year. Incentives have been given to this project, after its validity and effectiveness were highly recognized at the on-site evaluation by local residents.

a. It is difficult to help all students improve their basic and fundamental academic abilities only with regular school education. Therefore, additional public services need to be offered. Some students in the lower grades showed difficulty reading and writing Korean, which is the most fundamental ability required. Children with diverse backgrounds, such as children from multi-cultural families, low-income families, or grandparents-headed households, learned reading and writing Korean through customized education suited to their circumstances. b. The most important trait of being a teaching assistant is to work sustainedly. According to the evaluation results, teaching assistants who work frequently were able to make a great contribution to improving children's academic abilities and attitudes. local children's centers have additional state-sponsored personnel called child welfare educators, but they have accomplished little advance in building relationships with children or improving children's learning abilities since they usually make their visits just twice a week. The significance and effectiveness of this project has been proved for the past 2 years. We are planning to further expand this project so as to provide support for more children, and will prepare for its nationwide implementation too.