西神戸朝鮮初級学校の子どもたちに「1人1台のタブレット」の実現を！

Support for West Kobe Korean Elementary School “Mire Project"

 

Thank you very much for visiting our project page.

 

Our name is "Mire Project”, and we are a crowdfunding group of the West Kobe and Suma Tarumi Korean Youth Business Association. We are a crowdfunding team of the Nishi-Kobe and Suma-Tarumi Korean Youth Business Association, which is conducting various projects to support the educational activities of the West Kobe Korean Elementary School.

 

With no government subsidies for the operation of the Korean school so far, and subsidies from Hyogo Prefecture and Kobe City cut by about 1/2 in the last few years, the school is in serious operational difficulties.

 

To bring smiles back to the faces of children who are forced to endure the hardships of living in schools with the coronavirus, for which there is still no way out, we provide support to schools throughout the year.

 

In April, we resumed our school support activities, which had been suspended due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection and have so far donated anti-viral coating agents for use against the new coronavirus and provided on-site programming classes.

 

As a part of these activities, we are now making our first attempt at crowdfunding as the "Mire Project" to raise funds to donate "one tablet per student" to the children of the West Kobe Korean Elementary School, which is focusing on ICT education.

 

We would appreciate your warm support for the children's future.

 

 

About West Kobe Korean Elementary School, a small school in the city 

 

I would like to ask Ms. Pak to introduce the West Kobe Korean Elementary School that we are supporting.

 

Nishi-Kobe Korean Elementary School, located in Nagata Ward, Kobe City, is a small school with about 50 students. My name is Pak Asil, and I am a graduate of this school and currently work at my alma mater as a teacher.  

 

At the West Kobe Korean Elementary School, there are children who are Korean residents of Japan with roots in the Korean Peninsula. The elementary school is the equivalent of an elementary school in Japan. The school also has a kindergarten section, where children between the ages of 4- and 6-years old attend. The children are of various nationalities, including South Korean, North Korean, and Japanese.

 

 

By learning the Korean language and culture while living in Japan, the children who study at the Korean school learn about their Korean roots and establish their own special identity. Of course, the curriculum at the Korean school is in line with that of Japan, and English education by native speakers is included in the curriculum from the first grade.

 

In 2015, the 70th anniversary of the school's founding, the school set the goal of "shifting from 'education that teaches' to 'education that learns by itself'" and with the cooperation of alumni and volunteers who live in the area, the elementary classrooms have been equipped with wireless LAN and 20 laptop computers, making it one of the first schools to tackle ICT education.

 

The students who study at this school, where a variety of education is offered, are receiving a valuable education that will not only serve as a bridge between Japan and the Korean Peninsula but will also help them grow up to be leaders of Japanese society and the international community.

 

 

 

Inadequate online environment.

 

Korean schools are in a difficult situation due to cuts in subsidies.

 

It is said that the ability to make decisions on one's own is a necessary skill for human resources in the coming AI age. We believe that the children who will live in such an age should have the motivation to "do what I want! We decided to implement ICT education, valuing the experience of children who will live in such an era having the motivation to make decisions on their own.

 

At first, the children would look up a given topic on the Internet, but as they used communication applications on a daily basis to (1) summarize their own ideas, (2) compare their ideas with those of their friends and consider the differences, and (3) decide what the correct answer is, the children, who were often influenced by someone else's ideas, are now able to make decisions based on their own ideas.

 

 

Based on these experiences, we would like to further promote "self-directed learning education" using ICT, but, the environment is not sufficiently developed due to the aging of terminals.

 

Our immediate goal is to provide "one tablet per child" to about 40 children to create a better ICT education environment for them.

 

However, there has been no government subsidy for the operation of the Korean school, and even the subsidies from Hyogo Prefecture and Kobe City have been cut by about half in the past few years, so most of the operation of the school is somehow covered by donations from alumni, volunteers living in the area, and warm-hearted Japanese people.

 

Moreover, since the Korean school is excluded from ”the GIGA School Initiative” promoted by the government, the school's finances are always in a tight spot as there is a limit to how much support can be provided by parents and local volunteers for the improvement of the educational environment, such as ICT, in the face of the continuing economic downturn caused by the spread of the new coronavirus.

 

Against this background, the Nishi-Kobe and Suma-Tarumi Korean Youth Business Association, an economic and popular organization of Korean residents in their 30s and 40s, mainly graduates of our school, has decided to launch a project to improve the educational environment.

 

 

With your support, we will improve the online environment for children.

 

 

Up until the year before last, the school had been actively involved in exchanges with Japanese schools in the area and cultural exchanges with local people, but as such exchanges are still not possible, they would like to develop the online environment and have "daily exchanges" with many people, such as remote joint classes, remote cultural exchanges, and remote participation in various events.

 

We hope that our students, who are familiar with the cultures of both the Korean Peninsula, where they originated, and Japan, where they were born and raised, will be able to build a bridge between the two countries in the future by accumulating "daily exchanges" in Japanese society.

 

To further promote the "education of learning by oneself" at the West Kobe Korean Elementary School and to improve the environment for "daily exchange" with the local community, we, "Future Project", will first of all collect donations to purchase 20 iPads purchased last year for the school and 10 new iPads in order to provide "one tablet per student" for 4th grade students and above.

 

 

Prospects for the Project

 

 

 We believe that the experience of ICT education at West Kobe Korean Elementary School will lead to active information sharing in promoting ICT education in local elementary schools in the future. 

 

We would like to contribute to the local community through exchanges with Japanese schools and online communication for Korean residents in Japan who attend Japanese schools. I believe this will lead to the realization of a "multicultural society" in our daily lives.

 

 Based on our experience of opening our school as an evacuation shelter at the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, in the event of an unexpected disaster in the future, we will proactively open our school facilities to the public and plan to use the ICT environment that we are planning to develop as a means of gathering information and confirming the safety of our students.

 

 Through this project, we would like to tell people who have never heard of the Korean School about it and the significance of the ethnic education being provided in this country.

 

We would like to ask for your support and assistance in creating a fulfilling educational environment for the children who attend our school.

 

 

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