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| gettyimagesbank |
By Bahk Eun-ji
The central and local governments are expanding their support for children with multicultural backgrounds, with the goals of guaranteeing their right to education and better facilitating their integration into Korean society.
The Ministry of Justice said, Wednesday, that the F-4 visa for overseas Koreans will be available for underage children here who are either ethnic Korean Chinese or ethnic Koreans from former Soviet Union states, starting Jan. 3.
Children attending elementary, middle or high school here, or those between ages six and 18 not attending school due to long-term treatment for disease or disabilities, will be subject to the new visa system.
The measure was designed to resolve unstable stay statuses and guarantee the right to education for children eligible for F-1 visas, which allow for temporary stays in Korea of up to two years for family members in accordance with their parents' residential visa status.
Until now, these children were required to graduate high school in Korea in order to receive the F-4 visa. Previously, if a child's parents' visas were to expire or if there were no other legal guardian here, they would have to end their studies and return to their country of origin, without being able to extend their stay here.
When the new system goes into effect, regardless of parents' status or period of stay, the children will be eligible for F-4 visas and able to continue their studies until they graduate from high school here, as well as being able to work in Korea.
In addition, parents of children with F-4 visas can receive permission to extend their stays via F-1 visas until the children graduate.
"We expect this measure to help underage children who are ethnic Koreans from China and former Soviet countries continue their studies here stably, and we hope that, after graduating, they will become talented people who can contribute to both Korea and their home countries," Justice Minister Park Beom-kye said in a press release.
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| A classroom in the Seoul OnDream Education Center. The center will be upgraded into the tentatively named, "Seoul Global Youth Education Center," next year. Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government |
In the meantime, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has upgraded its education center for children who spent their early childhoods overseas and came to Korea at school age with their parents of foreign nationality, or parents of both Korean and foreign nationalities.
The Seoul OnDream Education Center, which has been operating as a public-private partnership project to support the settling in of such children, will cease its operations at the end of the month, and will be converted into the tentatively named, "Seoul Global Youth Education Center," starting Jan. 1, with the Smart Education Foundation running it at the city government's request.
The center will offer programs to help these children integrate into Korean society and develop their abilities, such as a special education to strengthen their bilingual skills in both Korean and their other language. Additional Korean language education, psychological counseling, and cultural and art activities will be also provided.
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