Chemical education in korea

2.1 Curricula and Textbook System
The Education Law articulates the goals and objectives of education for each school level. To ensure a standard quality of education, the Education Law prescribes the curricula for each school level and the criteria for the development of textbooks and instructional materials. The Ministry of Education provides the courses of study, which is called "Curriculum". Since all primary and secondary schools are required to follow the curricula, they are essentially universal regulations enforcing the teaching objectives and the contents.
The curricula have been revised on a periodical basis to reflect emerging needs of changing society and new frontiers of disciplines. Since the first version established in 1955, it has been revised five times. The sixth version was announced in 1992. The purpose of the new curricula is to produce a 1) healthy, 2) independent, 3) creative, and 4) moral person. The principles for the preparation of the sixth version are: 1) decentralization of decision-making regarding the curricula; 2) structural diversity of the curricula; 3) adequacy of the contents in the curricula; and 4) efficiency in the management of the curricula.
Textbooks are revised and updated according to the new curricula. The Ministry of Education owns the copyright of the textbooks for elementary school. The textbooks for science courses in secondary schools are inspected and selected by the Ministry of Education as well.
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2.2. Credit Allotments for Science Courses
Science and social studies are integrated into a course called "Wise Life" (6 hours a week) for grades 1~2. The "Nature" course is taught for grades 3~6. The "Science" course is taught in junior high schools. "General Science" as well as chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science is taught in high schools. Credit allotments for science courses at each school level are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Credit allotments for science courses.

School Level	Grade Level	Course	Credit 1	Remark
Elementary school	3 4 5 6	Nature	6 8 8 8	compulsory
Junior high school	7 8 9	Science	8 8 8	compulsory
High school	10	General Science	8	compulsory
	11~12	Physics I Chemistry I Biology I Earth Science I	4 4 4 4	for nonscience track students
		Physics II Chemistry II Biology II Earth Science II	8 8 8 8	for science track students

1 One credit consists of one 40 minute class (per week for a semester) in
elementary school, one 45 minute class in junior high school, and one 50
minute class in high school.
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