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An English village in Paju, Gyeonggi Province
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Teaching facilities, hospital among plans
A large scale English-speaking town is slated for construction on South Korea's southern island of Jeju around 2010. On December 14, the Ministry of Finance and Economy unveiled steps to boost the competitiveness of South Korea's services sector; the English town was one of such proposed measures. The town will be slightly larger than Seoul's island of Yeouido, at 2.9 million square meters. The government plans to build the English-only town to at first meet the demand for South Korean students seeking to study English intensively. The town will have primary and secondary schools as well as universities and private education institutes, or hagwon. Students will be allowed to study at the town for one or two years at a cost less than that of overseas study, with the language of instruction being English only. Study in the town will be officially accredited, the government said.Deputy Finance Minister Lim Yeong-rok said, "Recently, the Jeju provincial government said it will provide government-owned land as the site for the English-speaking town. So discussion [of the project] has been accelerated, and specific plans will be made by the first half of next year." Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-min said that "if students were to study for a relatively long duration at such an English-only locale, their command of English would no doubt improve, but there could be a problem with the disparity between demand and the limited number of spaces for students in the town." Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
