The Ministry of Education said on the 15th it will select 3 of the 9 national flagship universities across the country to create colleges linked with corporations and set up an organization to develop artificial intelligence (AI) convergence curricula. This is part of the Lee Jae-myung administration's "Make 10 Seoul Nationals project," one of its national agenda items. The Ministry of Education plans to first carry out the program with three universities in the third quarter and then expand the supported schools.
Minister Choi Kyo-jin of the Ministry of Education said at a briefing on plans to cultivate regional talent linked to growth engines held at the Government Complex Sejong that "by fostering regional universities, we will go beyond narrowing the gap between universities in the greater Seoul area and non-capital regions to lay the foundation for regional talent to become the driving force of national growth." The plans to cultivate regional talent linked to growth engines is another name for the Make 10 Seoul Nationals project.
The crux of the plans released by the Ministry of Education is the establishment of colleges linked with corporations. These colleges are institutions where students learn according to curricula created under the leadership of corporations. The Ministry of Education will also establish a research institute jointly run by universities and corporations to support undergraduate programs, graduate schools, and research institutes as a single unit. It will create a special scholarship program that provides tuition and living expenses for students attending these colleges. The Ministry of Education consulted the United Kingdom's example in designing this. Dyson, a British home appliance corporation, established the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and had students conduct projects with Dyson engineers three days a week. Students who completed this program were hired as Dyson employees upon graduation.
Another pillar of the plans is AI. The Ministry of Education will install a presidential, direct-reporting task organization that oversees AI undergraduate bodies and AI convergence education and research so the selected flagship national universities can become hubs of AI research. It will also redesign specialized training courses to build AI developers' capabilities. To enable non-majors to learn AI, it will develop field-specific AI convergence courses that combine each student's major knowledge with AI. Furthermore, flagship national universities supported by the Ministry of Education will share their AI curricula with affiliated regional universities so students at those schools can also receive AI education.
The Ministry of Education will provide about 100 billion won each to the flagship national universities selected to pilot the plans to cultivate regional talent linked to growth engines. It will expand employment-conditional contract departments across all flagship national universities. By introducing a mandatory AI basic education requirement, it will also expand credit exchanges with overseas universities and internship programs. In addition, it plans to raise per-student education spending to about 70% of Seoul National University's level (44 million won) by 2030.