Multi-layered Educational Barriers to North Korean Defector Students’ Digital Literacy in South Korea

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Multi-layered Educational Barriers to North Korean Defector Students’ Digital Literacy in South Korea

Proposal

1. Background
Despite the global efforts on ensuring digital literacy skills for a digital world, unequal access to ICT devices and the internet, as well as lack of computer education have widened the digital gap among marginalized children and youth. This issue is not an exception in South Korea, where North Korean (NK) defector students have been disproportionately marginalized by the digital divide. To address this digital divide, South Korean NGO, People for Successful Corean Reunification (PSCORE), has provided after-school computer education (e.g., MS Word, PowerPoint) and/or computer programming (e.g., Scratch) to over 20 defector students of public elementary and middle schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi province.


2. Aims, Significance & Methodology
This paper examines barriers that prevent defector students’ digital education through a framework of concentric circles, whose design was inspired by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1977). The modified framework consists of macro-political, micro-school, micro-household, and personal levels - i.e., from the outermost to the innermost layer. This study makes an original contribution to delineating multifaceted barriers to digital competencies among NK defector students based on their environmental relationships. This study employed a combination of (1) in-depth desk review through various publications (e.g., international and national policy papers) and (2) qualitative semi-structured interviews with Unification Educators (i.e., NK defector teachers who assist defector students’ after-school computer education by PSCORE) and a PSCORE administrative officer.


3. Educational Barriers
Each layer indicates distinguishing barriers to defector students’ digital education: (1) Macro-political level: According to the Korean Ministry of Education (MoE)’s 2015 Revised National Curriculum, elementary and middle schools are required to instruct 17-hour and 34-hour software education per year, respectively. However, these class hours are far insufficient to defector students to equip defector students with foundational digital skills, such as the ability to use MS Word. (2) Micro-school level: Some public schools have infrastructure problems (e.g., broken computers and speakers) which made it challenging for PSCORE to instruct after-school computer education to defector students. Moreover, learning materials (e.g., earphones) necessary for after-school computer education are often not supplied by schools. In this case, Unification Educators purchased those materials out of their own pockets. (3) Micro-household level: Unlike most South Korean peers receiving supplementary private computer education, NK defector students – approximately 60% - could not benefit from it mainly due to household poverty (Park, 2019). This has left defector students’ needs for digital literacy unaddressed. (4) Personal level: Most defector students do not own personal computers at home, which limit their time for practicing computers outside school. Those students whose first language is not Korean also made them difficult in using a Korean keyboard.


4. Conclusion
This paper concludes with several suggestions for the Korean MoE to resolve these multi-level educational barriers and enhance NK defector students’ digital literacy skills. Suggestions include (1) Increase funding for sufficient learning materials and environment to guarantee defector students’ quality computer education; (2) Develop and implement customized computer learning approaches in cooperation with local NGOs, including PSCORE, for meeting individual student's different needs; and more.

Author

• InJung Cho, The George Washington University