International Arts Education Week and Arts and Culture Education Policies by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
The 2nd World Conference on Arts Education, co-organized by UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, was held in Korea in 2010. The objective of the conference was to raise awareness of the importance of arts education and to promote cultural diversity through arts education.
Held between May 25 and 28, 2010, the conference aimed to reinforce the socio-cultural dimensions of arts education and to highlight the value of arts education in the promotion of cultural diversity and social cohesion. It was a successful event with 700 foreign and 1,300 domestic participants. Following a recommendation by the Korean government (4 November), the 36th session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 2011 proclaimed the fourth week of May as the International Arts Education Week.
Arts and Culture education projects by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism are largely classified into “in-school arts and culture education” and “non-school arts and culture education.” The former provides various programmes such as the “Teaching Artists in School” and the “Arts Flower Seed School.” The latter includes arts and culture education support programmes for the marginalized (including children and youths in child care facilities, seniors, and disabled people) and the inter-ministerial cooperation arts and culture education programmes, which are implemented by the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Unification, and the Korean National Police Agency.
A) In-School Arts and Culture Education Project ;
The aim of the in-school arts and culture education project is to cultivate cultural and creative talents. Its target group includes elementary, middle, and high school students and is implemented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts and Culture Education Service.
B) Non-School Arts and Culture Education Project ;
The purpose of this project is to build a cultural environment in which arts and culture policies are spread by establishing an inter-ministerial cooperation support system as well as to heal individuals and help them recover their confidence by making multilateral approaches to include the socially marginalized. It also aims to provide opportunities to rebuild relationships and cultivate independence as members of the society.
A) In-School Arts and Cultural Education Project ;
The Teaching Artists in School programme, which sends teaching artists to elementary, middle, and high schools, began in 2000 in the field of traditional Korean music and provided 56% of total support for elementary, middle, and high schools until 2012. In 2014, 4,735 artists in eight fields including traditional music, theater, film, dance, cartoon animation, crafts, photography, and design are teaching at 7,809 elementary, middle, and high schools. This programme offers students opportunities to enjoy culture and arts from their childhood and makes it possible to acquire a cultural capital, which forms the basis of creative thinking.
The Arts Flower Seed School programme designates elementary schools with a strong will to run arts and culture education as “arts flower seed schools” and develops them into schools specializing in arts and culture education. It designated 10 schools when it first began in 2008. Among them, three schools, which successfully carried out the programme, were designated as “arts flower sprout schools” and received additional support from businesses. In the second round (2011-2014) of the programme, 1,998 students at 16 schools are receiving support and 1,457 students at 10 schools and 674 students at four schools will receive support in the third round (2012-2015) and the fourth round (late 2013-2016), respectively.
B) Non-School Arts and Culture Education Project ;
This project is based on cooperation between ministries with participation from the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family, the Ministry of Health & Welfare, the Ministry of Unification, and the Korean National Police Agency. At its initial stage, the project targets were the military (2006) and correctional facilities as well as juvenile detention centers (2007). This was later expanded to include industrial complexes and youth facilities. So far, this project has offered support to the army, navy, and air force bases, prisons, vocational training prisons, juvenile detention centers, youth delinquency prevention centers, medical treatment and custody facilities, probation offices, industrial complexes (laborers), youth training facilities, youth counseling and welfare centers, youth shelters, unauthorized alternative schools, community child centers, alternative schools for North Korean defector youths, and auxiliary police units.
Among these, 1) the arts and culture education support project for the military selects arts and culture education programmes based on a demand survey of military bases through cooperation with the Ministry of National Defense; 2) the arts and culture education support project for correctional facilities and juvenile detention centers gives young people a chance for self-reflection through arts and culture education, and offers them as part of a process from correction to autonomous edification; 3) the arts and culture education support project for youth delinquency prevention centers, medical treatment and custody facilities, and probation offices provides arts and culture education to youths and prisoners with mental illnesses so that they can increase sensitivity, develop social skills, and cultivate proper character-building; 4) the arts and culture education support project for laborers, which is run in cooperation with the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, offers continuous culture and arts activities support by providing spaces and equipment for club activities in industrial complexes; and 5) extracurricular youth arts and culture education aims to heal individuals and recover their confidence so that they have an opportunity to recover broken relationships as members of society.
Examples of related programmes are as follows: 1) As an example of the arts and culture education support project for the military, the “Documentary and Feature Films Production Education Programme” offers a two-month short-term course and helps participants to produce videos; and 2) examples of the arts and culture education support project for correctional facilities and juvenile detention centers include the “Drama Education Programme” which aims to increase creativity, self-reflection and understanding of others as well as stimulation of imagination and sensibility, and the “Arts and Culture Education Programme” which aims to cultivate sociality in inmates at correctional facilities and help them reflect on their inner self as well as plan a positive future through individual and group activities.
$50,425,147.00