Carrying on the honor of Korea’s first Special Education Department,
special education students volunteered at the Disabled Welfare Center during summer vacation.
A total of 22 Special Education students from the School of Teaching, including 7 candidates for elementary school teachers and 15 candidates for middle school teachers, have passed the Specialized Teacher Certification Test for 2013. A total of 34 students have successfully passed the test this year. The recent group of 22 students plus an additional 10 students who are employed at national public schools, as well as 2 who are employed at private schools have successfully passed the test this year.
Since the Department of Education, Science and Technology has decided to increase the employment of specialized teachers to accommodate the annual increase of disabled students’ education last November, a total of 465 teachers (62 specialized teachers for youngsters, 131 elementary school specialized teachers, and 272 middle school specialized teachers) were selected with a high competency rate of 15 to 1 during the second half of 2013.
The first ever Special Education department was founded in Korea in 1971 to educate specialized teachers who can manage students with special education needs due to disability. For the past few years, it acted as a leader in special education development producing numerous specialized teachers as well as teachers working in various education fields. Furthermore, it has been educating professional specialized teachers and special education experts to cultivate improved teachers by cooperating with the special education department of general graduate schools and graduate schools specialized in special education.
Meanwhile, special education student volunteers visited ‘Haelim Center’, a disabled welfare center located in Bucheon for 3 nights and 4 days from July 16 to 19. Volunteering at the disabled welfare center is a traditional event of the Special Education department which has a history of more than 30 years of volunteering during every summer vacation. This event not only includes simple volunteering acts such as cleaning the facility or doing the laundry, but also helping disabled people to experience various activities with special programs carried out at different days and times.
50 students of the Special Education department designed group programs by splitting up to 12 groups of 4~5 members during this volunteering event. Disabled people were attracted to the programs like making hand cream, lip balm and sponge cake, folk dancing and nail art activities.
An Yoo-Kyung, head of student affairs, who managed these volunteer activities said “Volunteering activities of the Special Education department are very meaningful, because you get to visit a disabled center in person and apply what you learned in your classes. Also, more and more students are joining the activity every year because it makes people feel a sense of accomplishment, because it allows them to develop and teach on their own.”
