CHAPTER 5: Gifted Education in The Republic Of Korea: Nurturing Creativity of the STEM Talented Students

Gifted education in the Republic of Korea, which began in the 1980s, has been spurred by the promulgation of the Gifted and Talented Education Promotion Act in 2000. Korean gifted education policies were mainly established to nurture the creativity of STEM talented students to the maximum extent, while minimizing the negative influence of severe competitions associated with the Confucian culture. Highly creative STEM students in the fourth grade and up are identified through various assessments of their creative problem solving abilities in STEM. Gifted education for elementary and middle school students is implemented during afterschool hours or on weekends as extra-curricular activities, whereas for high school students, it is implemented during the regular school hours in specialized science high schools. Challenges include a lack of systematic and effective collaboration among related ministries, research centers, and educational institutions, as well as the limited gifted education in such domains as social studies, humanities, and the arts. More attention should also be paid to the under-represented gifted students from multi-cultural families, or students with disabilities or economic disadvantage.