[National Future Strategy Insight] An Investigation into and Future Challenges regarding Education Policies to Expand Psychological and Social Capital, No. 11
Associate Research Fellow Sung Moon-ju presented challenges related to education policies to expand “psychological capital,” healthy and positive psychological states of individuals, and “social capital,” intangible capital that comes from the social relationships between people and lead to individual or public benefits in her report.
After identifying the current levels of psychological and social capitals of the members of society, it was found that it is necessary to improve the levels of both types of capital. Particularly, levels of resilience, participation and networking, and public trust were especially low, and so it was concluded that these levels must be significantly improved.
In terms of the low-income, it was found that the state must actively intervene to improve the levels of psychological and social capitals. The role of university education to expand psychological and social capitals also needed to be strengthened.
Based on these findings, the report listed the following challenges in relation to education policies: implementation of various types of evaluation methods and evaluation criteria for elementary and middle school education, and the separation of student evaluation at the classroom level and at the national level; increase of the opportunities for students to participate in developing national elementary and middle school education curricula and decision making processes of schools in terms of the education curriculum; development of a program to improve the level of psychological capital for university students at the university level; increase of the accessibility and the number of programs for adults to improve resilience; and establishment of an education organization that strengthens intangible social learning.
Dr. Sung stated that “in order to achieve the national goal of securing national competitiveness and improving the quality of life of the citizens with innovative growth, there must be a greater perspective on capital,” and added that “to expand the capitals that come from human capabilities, it is necessary to comprehensively consider not only human capital, but also psychological and social capital and find a balance among them. This will make it possible to achieve the country’s goals.”
※ “National Future Strategy Insight” is a brief-type in-depth research report issued every other week to present national future strategies for Korea based on the analysis of major future issues by the research fellows of National Assembly Futures Institute.
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