The Ministry of Education and the National Institute for Lifelong Education announced on September 30 that they will conduct the “2026 Campaign to Foster a Multicultural-Friendly School Culture” for elementary and middle school teachers and students from September through February of next year. With the number of students from immigrant backgrounds reaching 210,000, the campaign aims to shift multicultural education from simply “understanding” other cultures to creating “experiences of shared participation” between students from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds within the classroom.
The Ministry of Education emphasized that positive interactions are crucial for students to embrace diverse cultures. According to the 2024 National Survey on Multicultural Acceptance conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, multicultural acceptance scores were 53.38 for adults and 69.77 for adolescents, with scores increasing as students were younger and as they engaged in more interactions and multicultural activities.
The campaign features a different program each month. In September, a multicultural education quiz game for teachers was held, and in October, teachers and students will vote together to select the campaign slogan. That same month, teachers will participate in the “Multicultural Education Encyclopedia Created by Teachers,” where they share information on multicultural education, while students will take part in the “Small Joys World Cup in Our Class,” where students with and without immigrant backgrounds share their interests and preferences.
In November, “I’ll Share My Multicultural Education Tips!”—where teachers share teaching know-how via comments—and “2026: We’re Together!”—a challenge where classes perform a relay dance routine—will take place. The choreography will be released in advance on October 28 on the YouTube channels of the Central Multicultural Education Center and Heungding School. In December, there will be an event where participants watch the public service announcement “From Difference to Coexistence!” and leave comments; from January to February of next year, a Hangul typing game using sentences related to multicultural education will be held on the “Korean for Everyone” website.
Elementary and middle school teachers who are members of the Multicultural Education Portal and participate in the campaign will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a box of snacks for their class. Prizes for the Hangul typing game will be shipped in bulk to the classrooms assigned for the new semester in March. Participation is available on the Multicultural Education Portal from September through December and on the “Korean for Everyone” website from January through February of next year.
The Multicultural Education Portal is an integrated platform that supports multicultural education in elementary and middle schools. It provides the “Sending My Child to School” guide for parents of students with immigrant backgrounds, as well as 51 commonly used school-to-home communication templates in 15 languages; parent guidebooks and resources on the high school credit system and responding to school violence are available in 6 languages. The portal also features a Korean language proficiency assessment tool for students with immigrant backgrounds, as well as guides on academic record management for foreign nationals and career planning based on residency status.
The Ministry of Education and the National Institute for Lifelong Education plan to develop the teaching experiences and case studies gathered from teachers through this campaign into multicultural education materials and disseminate them to schools nationwide.
Noh Jin-young, Director General of the Student Support Bureau at the Ministry of Education, stated, “Multicultural education in schools should be conducted in a way that allows all students to naturally respect and understand each other’s differences while participating together in educational activities,” adding, “We hope this outreach campaign will serve as a catalyst for this.”
