Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology: The “School Policies” section under Policies & Programs outlines some of the government’s plans for combating the growing dependence on private education (outside of normal school hours) and mental health issues among adolescents, but the cracks that are apparent in these plans are perhaps even more interesting.
OECD Factbook 2009: The Education, Quality of Life, and Labour chapters of this Factbook were the most helpful in finding a link between the amount of resources dedicated to education, how hard the employed work on a daily basis, and the extent to which people lead a “balanced” or “happy” lifestyle in South Korea.
OECD.Stat Extracts: Use this site for summary tables compare all OECD member nations on many different variables, including demographics, education statistics, healthcare expenditure, social and welfare statistics, and much more.
Seoul Alternative Learning Community Network: This site dedicated to the topic of alternative education in the Seoul Metropolitan Area provides the latest news, campaigns/projects, tips & tricks and key lessons learned for teachers and new schools, and information on member schools. It is also a place for parents, teachers and students in the alternative learning community to share their experiences. I was able to appreciate how the network focuses on enriching children’s educational experience, not on competing with the public education system for instance. The shortfall is that the site is only available in Korean.
International Association for Learning Alternatives and the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) blog: For those of you not fluent in Korean, check out these two sites to find out the efforts that large international and national (respectively) organizations are putting into developing and promoting “learner-centered education”. In particular, the interview with Jerry Mintz, founder of AERO, on the AERO blog provides insight into Mintz’s philosophy behind his organization and a better learning environment in general. Note that the above two organizations include alternative schools, home schooling, Montessori, “unschooling”, and much more.
Guardian.co.uk – Anthea Lipsett: Anthea Lipsett is a reporter for the Guardian who writes on Britain’s education issues. Many of Lipsett’s articles and blog posts highlight the impact of government policies (e.g. public funding) on the state of educational institutions as well as the mental/emotional impact of school-related issues on children.
WHO Suicide and Suicide Prevention in Asia: Use this resource to find out about some of the barriers to effective treatment of depression and prevention of suicide in Asia, as well as innovative approaches to these efforts.
Extra! Korea: This blog helped me to get some initial ideas on the topics that I later searched for in news articles and statistics. In particular, the education, suicide, and youth categories were the most useful. Note that this is a fairly informal blog that provides the best value when brainstorming initial ideas.
Change.org – Education: This award-winning blog by Clay Burell (Apple Distinguished Educator, currently teaching at an international school in South Korea) addresses a wide range of educational issues, from government policies and standardized evaluation methods for students and teachers, to teaching ideas/resources, student rights and cross-cultural differences.
