Korean Ambassador Lee Jang-keun expressed his commitment to strengthen his country’s cooperation in the field of education in Bangladesh, according to media reports.

The South Korean envoy said this during a courtesy call on Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Monday.

Stressing the importance of education in realising the goals of Bangladesh’s socio-economic development and highly recognising the achievement of Bangladesh in the education of children and youth, Ambassador Lee briefed on the situation of various cooperation projects in the field of education between the two countries.

“Education has been one of the focuses of Korea’s cooperation with Bangladesh. The Korean government has been implementing various programmes in this sector,” he said.

Lee Jang-keun said Korea is assisting the capacity building of Bangladeshi universities to promote youth entrepreneurship, establishing training and education centers in local upazilas, offering scholarship opportunities for Bangladeshi youth to study in Korea and offering Korean language courses in collaboration with universities.

He said one of the major cooperation projects currently undergoing in education field is the Youth Entrepreneurship Project with Dhaka University. Through KOICA, Korea’s development agency, with the project cost of 7.5 million US dollars, Korea is establishing an Entrepreneurship Education Center in Dhaka University and providing educational equipment and capacity building programmes.

According to him, another major ongoing project in education is the establishment of ICT Training and Resource Centers for Education in 160 Upazilas. With the financial assistance of 60 million US dollars through EDCF, Korea’s concessional loan, the project not only establishes ICT centers but also develops educational contents and e-learning system and help capacity building of teachers by giving training programmes in Korea.

It is the second phase of the project after the successful implementation of establishing ICT centers in 125 upazilas in 2015 with the EDCF assistance of 40 million US dollars, he said.

“Korea is becoming an increasingly preferred academic destination for Bangladeshi youth. At present, around 1,500 Bangladeshi students are studying in Korean universities most of them are with various scholarships opportunities including the GKS, Global Korea Scholarship, offered by the Korean government,” the ambassador said.

He said the number of the Bangladeshi students in Korea continues to increase every year. Under the GKS programme, every year around 20 Bangladesh students are going to Korea for undergraduate or graduate studies.

Since 2011, some 172 Bangladeshi students have been benefited by the programme. Among them, 137 were in graduate programmes while 35 were in undergraduate programmes.

The number of GKS candidates has increased from 8 students in 2011 to 18 in 2022. This year 18 Bangladeshi students have the GKS opportunities, 14 for graduate studies and 4 for undergraduate.

All the GKS Bangladesh alumni are contributing actively to various sectors in Bangladesh, from universities, private or public companies to Korean investors and business companies in Bangladesh like Samsung, LG, and Hyundai.

“In order to meet the growing interest and demand of learning Korean language among the Bangladeshi youth, the Korean Embassy is working closely with various Bangladeshi universities,” Lee Jang-keun said.