The government announced a comprehensive package of measures Tuesday to cultivate creative manpower considered essential in realizing President Park Geun-hye’s “creative economy” vision.

Under the measures announced jointly by the ministries of science, education and labor, the government will offer more career education at primary and secondary schools so students can discover their given talent to help decide which type of jobs they want to have in the future.

The government will also build a system of matching schools that want to provide their students with a wide range of on-the-job experiences with various companies and public organizations run by their respective municipal governments.

In addition, the government will expand the convergence education of humanity and science-technology, currently available only at special schools for talented students, to ordinary high schools while opening vocational schools to train computer software developers by 2015.

To help develop a spirit of challenge, which is essential for those who want to venture into business, the government will establish an entrepreneurship education program for middle and high schools.

The government plans to test-run the program at vocational schools around the country starting in the second semester of this year.

Each university will have one “academic-industrial cooperation center” to support IT students who want to venture into business with technologies that they developed in school.

The government also plans to push for a plan to support college graduates who aim to land a job or open a business overseas.

A new type of visa will be introduced to encourage more talented foreigners to launch start-ups in South Korea, according to the ministries.

The latest measures are a follow-up to a government plan announced in June to materialize Park’s “creative economy” policy, which calls for creating new business opportunities, industries and jobs through the fusion of information and communication technology and other areas.

Announcing the June plan, Choi Mun-kee, the minister of science, ICT and future planning, said the government will inject about 40 trillion won ($35.8 billion) over the next five years into plans to realize the vision of a creative economy.

The proposed plan will help create as many as 650,000 jobs in the public sector alone, he added.

But there has been mounting criticism that the policy is still hard to grasp and lacks concrete and fresh action plans. (Yonhap News)