Korean Educational Development Institute(KEDI)

Raising children with good character has been a major goal for public education for the past 60 years in Korea. Contrary to their excellence in academic achievement, Korean students are at risk in their character development, including social and emotional skills. The primary purpose of this paper is to suggest the new concept of character education and strategies to implement policies successfully. To do so, the paper examines historical contexts of character education and related policy, and previous concepts of character education. Then, the paper globally explores what key competencies are considered important in constructing the new concept of character education and suggesting applicable policy strategies. A new concept of character education is proposed, consisting of three dimensions and six elements; social awareness and interpersonal skills in the social dimension, self-awareness and selfmanagement for the emotional dimension, and core value awareness and responsible decision-making for the ethical dimension. Finally, policy implications for the newly-defined character education are suggested, including competence-based curriculum reform, improvement of the teacher training system, strong partnerships among schools, families, and communities, and modification of high school and college admission systems, as well as the hiring system.