On May 3, HGU Has Designated in PRIME: the PRogram for Industrial needs - Matched Education hosted by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
PRIME aims to bring preemptive measures to address the issue of the decreasing school age population, the increasing youth unemployment rate, and the mismatch human resources in various fields of study. It is one of the huge financial support projects of the Korean government, to re-organize the national academic structure by reflecting future demands, strengthening students’ professional competencies and their future career capabilities.
Handong University analyzed its school for creating high value-added knowledge services to satisfy the demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The results were as follows; the necessity of future-oriented converged majors in order to nurture talents secured with start-up capability and ICT utilization competency; the necessity of providing alternative engineering majors for excellent students graduating from the liberal arts, and the necessity of more development of the skills of female students.
In order to accomplish these new services, HGU is planning to operate the School of ICT Start-ups based on creative and converged education. This will enhance ICT converged education and strengthen start-up capabilities by connecting with K-ICT led by the government and start-up revitalization policies.
HGU has been already secured with the knowledge and experience to operate entrepreneurship training and start-up education. The students of HGU must complete ICT educational courses such as programming beginning with all freshmen.
Based on this program, HGU will strategically provide ICT start-up centered education, increase the number of engineering and liberal arts converged major students, as well as boost employment and start-ups by cooperating with local businesses.
Furthermore, HGU is planning to seek start-ups and maximize opportunities to work in those endeavors. Start-ups in foreign countries will be encouraged through start-up education institutions abroad along with the creative city establishment plan through ICT/IoT convergence implemented by Pohang City.
Since his inauguration in February, 2014, President Chang has stressed the importance of ICT education, creative converged education, and start-ups by presenting the top ten projects to change the world. As part of these specified top ten projects, ‘The ICT project for the next generation’ and ‘Start-up projects’ have been promoted. President Chang presented a ‘Lecture on Vision and Creative Convergence’. In addition, by hosting the HGU start-up completion and the student start-ups competition in Gyeongbuk Province, he has been contributing to the start-up capability of HGU by dispatching the prize winners to Silicon Valley and Shanghai. Furthermore, this year, the Creative Convergence Education and ICT Converged Majors were newly opened.
According to HGU’s President, “At Handong Global University, we will do our best to take the lead in undergraduate school education by prioritizing character development, creativity, and globalized education. In particular, we will continue to seek new transformations to develop the converged education that this era requires.”
Handong Global University has been chosen to conduct various major government-supported programs and projects such as the Advanced College Education (ACE), CK-I (University for Creative Korea), Leaders in Industry-University Cooperation (LINC), the Supportive Project for Normalizing Higher Education and PRIME .
