Teachers participate in a pilot training program in January aimed at enhancing the teacher’s capacity to deliver social and emotional education. (Ministry of Education)
Social and emotional learning programs aimed at strengthening students’ mental well-being will be expanded nationwide at all elementary, middle and high schools starting in the new school year, the Ministry of Education said Tuesday.
Social and emotional education refers to a program piloted by the Education Ministry at select schools in 2025, designed to strengthen core competencies such as self-awareness, emotional regulation, self-care, relationship-building and awareness of community values.
The ministry said the pilot program yielded “meaningful results” in improving students’ emotional competencies. Ministry data showed that students’ social and emotional scores, measured through surveys, rose across all grade levels after participating in the program.
Based on the results, the ministry will expand the program to all schools starting this year.
As part of the expansion, the ministry has developed more than 140 new educational materials, including videos and social media-style card content, tailored to students’ developmental stages.
The materials are designed to help students build core social and emotional skills, while allowing teachers to incorporate them flexibly into homeroom activities, guidance counseling, discussions and creative learning sessions.
The materials will be uploaded Thursday to a dedicated social and emotional education platform within the ministry’s online education portal.
The platform will host a wide range of resources — including curriculum guides, school-level programs, video content, best-practice casebooks and output from teacher research groups — with free access for schools and families.
The ministry will also provide training to 1,500 designated teachers from January to February to enhance teacher capacity to deliver social and emotional education.
Teacher research groups and on-site support teams will be operated to facilitate communication with schools and support classroom implementation.
“For students to grow in a healthy way, it is essential not only to deliver knowledge but also to help them regulate emotions and empathize with others,” a teacher who participated in the pilot training program said.
Another noted that social and emotional education “should not remain a temporary trend but be continuously studied and applied as a core value of future education.”
Shim Min-cheol, director general of the Student Health and Safety Policy Bureau, said social and emotional education plays a critical role in helping students understand their emotions, build healthy relationships and care for their mental well-being.
“The Education Ministry will continue to strengthen policy support by enhancing social and emotional education capacities not only in schools, but also across families and local communities, so that all students can grow into healthy and happy members of society,” he said.
The program is part of the Lee Jae Myung administration’s broader push to address deteriorating student mental health, with Lee naming the creation of a “multilayered support system for students’ mental health” as a core policy agenda.
seungku99@heraldcorp.com
