Lee Joong-Keun, chairman of Booyoung Group, who has led efforts to address the low birthrate issue, stepped forward as head of the Korea Senior Citizens Association to help resolve the "caregiver shortage" crisis.
According to Booyoung Group on the 8th, Chairman Lee proposed "the introduction of foreign professionals" as a solution to fill the labor gap. Lee said, "More than 1 million seniors will come to need long-term care services," and emphasized, "Like Japan, we should proactively introduce a model that professionally trains personnel from Southeast Asia to support home care and end-of-life care."
In fact, Booyoung Group is operating a concrete roadmap to build a foreign professional long-term care training system, which does not exist in Korea, by directly selecting personnel in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, and providing Korean language as well as nursing and care training.
Booyoung Group established and operates the Ujeong Cambodia College of Nursing in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The nursing college has official accreditation from the Cambodian Ministry of Health, and the company plans programs that link graduates to employment and graduate studies in Korea. Lee also provided a 50% tuition reduction to all incoming students at Ujeong Cambodia College of Nursing and awarded full four-year scholarships to three high-achieving entrants.
Personnel selected locally will enter Korea after completing Korean language education and acquire Korean qualifications through specialized institutions. Booyoung Group plans to expand the scale from 40 in the first year to 100 this time, and to build a systematic supply chain to meet the surging demand for more than 200,000 long-term care workers in the future. Booyoung Group is also seeking approval to establish nursing colleges in Laos and Myanmar.
In Korea, Changshin University, acquired by Booyoung Group, is serving as a key base. Changshin University was selected for the pilot project of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to cultivate "foreign care workers," and recently, a master's graduate in social welfare (from Sri Lanka) passed the care worker qualification exam, becoming the first foreign international student in the country to do so. This is the first practical case proving Booyoung's "local selection–domestic education–qualification acquisition" model.
Policy cooperation is also being strengthened. The Korea Senior Citizens Association signed a business agreement with the Korean Nursing Association (KNA) in Aug. last year and is promoting a range of joint projects to respond to a super-aged society, including ▲ establishing an integrated system for nursing, long-term care and caregiving ▲ expanding the home-based end-of-life care system ▲ and creating an education system for foreign care workers.