Korean students from multicultural families visited Sydney for intensive overseas training as part of Youth Hope Fund program offered by the Korean Foundation.
The Korean Foundation (KF) designed the first overseas global leadership training program for Korean multicultural students, called Youth Ambassador Program, in cooperation with Asia Education Foundation (AEF).
The 20 selected students, aged 14-16, who are from the four cities in Korea including Gwangju, Daegu, Busan and Suwon, arrived in Sydney on Tuesday, 23 August. For the next 6 days in Sydney, they are scheduled to experience Australian multicultural society and education.
They firstly visited Campsie Public School to attend and observe its Korean program classes, and also travel to the Sydney Opera House and Sydney’s major tourist attractions.
On their second day in Sydney, they visited the Korean Education Centre in Sydney (KEC) to learn their major missions and key elements of the Australian education system. They also explored the Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) and experienced how the KCC promotes Korean culture in Australia and reinforce cultural ties with Australia.
The AEF Project Officer Bonnie Hermawan said, “This program will hopefully enable to enrich the Korean multicultural students’ understanding about Australia and foster the Australian-Korean relationship. We wish to open up many programs like this to give opportunities to many students in Korea.”
According to the Korean Ministry of Education, the total number of students in primary, middle and high schools, either of whose parents is not a Korean national, has tripled in five years, as the growth of students multicultural families has been increasing. Moreover, 82,536 multicultural students enrolled in schools in Korea last year, accounting for 1.35 percent of the students in the country.
The KF promotes to make Korea better known to the world and to develop friendly relations with people worldwide through its support for such initiatives as Korean Studies education, cultural exchange, public diplomacy, and Korea-related publications. The KF has been cooperating with the AEF, an initiative of Asianlink at the University of Melbourne.