Parents have been banned from using recording devices or other means to record lessons without the teacher’s permission, according to a new teachers’ manual distributed by the Ministry of Education on Wednesday. The move aims to prevent parents from installing sound recording apps on their child’s phone to eavesdrop on classrooms, as some parents have reportedly confronted and verbally attacked teachers in the past based on such audio recordings, according to the ministry. Unde

More elderly Koreans are working after retirement to avoid poverty, but many find their income insufficient, data showed Wednesday. According to data released by Statistics Korea, 36.2 percent of those aged 65 or older in 2022 said they are still working, up 6.1 percentage points from 2012’s 30.1 percent. The rate was above the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations’ average of 15 percent and the highest among the 36 OECD member countries. Japan reported

United Nations peacekeeping force officers who visited Seoul earlier this month emphasized the need to enhance gender inclusivity within peacekeeping forces and to recruit more talented women into the military. Colonel B. Maureen Wellwood, the first woman in the Canadian Infantry to attain the rank of colonel, said women’s strength plays a key role in situations where peacekeepers should build trust with suffering residents, referring to her missions in several countries including Afghanis

Earlier this month, a former professor saw his appeal denied in a lawsuit he filed to overturn the university’s decision to dismiss him. He was fired for sending inappropriate messages to a graduate student -- a female foreign national doing a doctorate. In 2021, the male professor sent sexually suggestive messages to the Ph.D. student, while implying that he would not pass her dissertation if she continued to avoid his advances. In some of the messages disclosed to the media, he described

Despite the Yoon Suk Yeol government's pledge to crack down on crimes against women, concerns are growing over the women's safety following a spate of gender-based violence cases. The tragic death of 38-year-old Lee Eun-chong, who was murdered by her former coworker and boyfriend after being stalked, stirred criticism over a lack of practical protection for victims of gender-based crimes under South Korean law. In Lee's case, she had been granted a temporary restraining order to

More than one million Koreans aged over 60 are primary household earners, despite their age falling within the typical retirement phase, data showed Tuesday. According to National Health Insurance data that Rep. Kim Sang-hoon of the ruling People Power Party received from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of Korean household breadwinners aged over 60 stood at 1.05 million last year, more than double the figure of 503,840 recorded in 2013. Among individuals with dependents on their

The agriculture ministry said Tuesday it will run a five-month special disinfection period to implement stronger antivirus measures against animal diseases in the winter. During the campaign, running from October to February, the government will strengthen the monitoring of wild animals and local farms and carry out stronger disinfection and quarantine measures against the highly pathogenic avian influenza, African Swine Fever, and other diseases among animals, according to the Ministry of Agric

The first Mayors' Forum of the 12th biennial World Cities Summit Mayors Forum took place on Monday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in eastern Seoul. "I am pleased to discuss sustainable and inclusive cities in Seoul, where 'accompanying the weak' is a core value," said Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon while delivering his welcoming remarks at the forum on Monday. Oh also shared the city government's policy achievements with "Seoul Learn," an online learning platform for

For the first time in a decade, Seoul citizens will witness a large-scale military parade, with tanks and armed forces marching across the city center Tuesday amid escalating tensions with North Korea. Major thoroughfares will be closed throughout the day for the event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Korean Armed Forces' founding, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on Sept. 20. The march will commence at the Seoul Air Base at 1:30 p.m. following a memorial ceremony. From

The Suncheonman International Garden Expo, which kicked off on April 1, will show off its fall flowers over the Chuseok holiday. After first launching in 2013, the Suncheonman International Garden Expo in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, has returned for the first time in 10 years. The expo organizers said while the first edition focused on preventing urban expansion, this year's expo builds on it to include landscape gardens in wetland and urban areas, stretching across 545 hectares. The

Roh Gwan-gyu was elected mayor of Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, in June 2022 -- just 10 months before the Suncheonman International Garden Expo. While there was limited time, Roh made sure everything was being prepared smoothly by assuming the position as the Chairman of Suncheonman International Garden Expo’s organizing committee. “Since I took office on July 1 (2022), I was always present on site to help the organizing committee make quick decisions and supplement them,” s

A man in his 40s has been sentenced to prison for producing child pornography using an artificial intelligence image generator for the first time in Korea, local media reported Monday. According to reports, the man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years on charges of violating the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth. The accused created a total of 360 sexually explicit images on an image-generating AI program installed on a laptop in April with commands including "10 years old," "nu

Nearly 7,300 South Korean nationals were victims of accidents or crimes in other countries during the first half of this year, with 19 of them murdered, data showed Monday. Data released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reveals that a total of 7,294 Korean nationals were victims of accidents or crimes while overseas during the 6-month period from January to June this year, marking an approximate 44 percent on-year increase. This rise comes as Korea saw a more than sevenfold on-year increas

Until the 1970s, blatant forms of discrimination against foreign nationals existed in Japan. For example, non-Japanese citizens were banned from entering law school regardless of their qualifications or if they had passed the bar exam, and many ethnic minorities were denied permanent residence, forcing them to reapply for permission to live in Japan every three years. Kim Kyong-duk, a Korean descendant born and raised in Japan, passed the Japanese bar exam in 1976. He was offered the chance to b

The number of adolescents receiving growth hormone therapy is increasing rapidly, with the number for the first half of the year already surpassing that of last year. According to data released by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service on Sept. 22, 25,900 adolescents received growth hormone therapy in the first half of this year. This figure was 25,300 last year, which was about double the number recorded in 2020. Growth hormone therapy is prescribed following precise diagnoses throu

The number of deaths caused by serious industrial accidents at workplaces in the first half of the year dropped nearly 10 percent from a year ago, a government report said. A total of 289 workers died from January to June, marking a drop of 9.1 percent, or 29 people, from 318 on-duty deaths of workers in the previous year, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The number of industrial accident cases also declined 5.6 percent, or 17 cases, compared to a year ago, recording 284 cases

South Korea's official data on parental spending for their children's education has long faced criticism for overlooking two significant aspects: expenditures prior to the commencement of public education and those occurring after its completion. To address these concerns and better assess the financial burden on parents, the Ministry of Education plans to look into the cost of “private education” of preschool children and high school graduates who are studying to retake th

In response to the growing international demand for learning the Korean language, the South Korean Education Ministry took a proactive step in 2021 by creating a government-managed Korean language education curriculum. Prior to the central government's involvement, the selection and distribution of language courses and textbooks were primarily handled by local Korean language education centers. This led to concerns about the lack of structured content that could cater to the diverse languag

Korea's parental leave benefits average at 44.6 percent of actual wages, placing it near the bottom of the list among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations, data revealed Sunday. Although the country offers an extended parental leave period, the actual utilization rate remains low, with especially adverse impacts on low-income workers, the data showed. In Korea, workers insured for more than 180 days can take up to a year of parental leave to care for ch

Nearly two million individuals in Korea have formally declined life-extending medical interventions, choosing instead to prioritize their right to die with dignity when suffering from a terminal condition, data showed Sunday. Data from the National Agency for Management of Life-Sustaining Treatment reveals that as of the end of August, 1,941,231 people have filed an advance health care directive to abstain from life-saving medical assistance since the system's inception in February 2018. Wo