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South Korea is a model country to emulate

In just one generation, South Korea has transformed its economy from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest. Innovation has been at the center of this transformation. Innovation and technological development have helped South Korea increase its export competitiveness and fueled the remarkable economic growth in recent decades. According to the World Bank, South Korea, one of the poorest countries in the 1960s, has become the 12th largest economy in the world and the 4th largest in Asia in 2022. Similarly, according to the Global Innovation Index at the end of 2022, Seoul ranked fourth among the world's major centers of scientific and technological innovation.

What has stood out in the South Korean model of 60 years of growth are a strong education system, a democratic transition after World War II, and a successful process of industrialization and globalization. This has led to an increase in the portion of trade from 10% of GDP in 1951 to 80-90% today. This was aided by the promotion of comparative advantage, the use of technology in the production process, and government policy support highlighted by the five-year development plans.

Education (Korea is a top 5 country in PISA tests) and democracy are fundamental pillars of development of South Korea, which Costa Rica should see as a role model to emulate. With that in mind, I will focus on education issues and use our relationship with the country's education system as a starting point.

Signing agreement with the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education to utilize digital technology in the classroom

In early 2011, Costa Rica's Minister of Public Education Leonardo Garnier and South Korea's Minister of Education, Science and Technology Ahn Byong-man signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation on the development of e-learning and the use of digital technologies in the classroom. The agreement was designed to promote and develop advanced learning programs and the use of digital tools to benefit the education sector through the exchange of knowledge and experience in policy, training, and technology. The Memorandum of Understanding, which was to be effective for two years from the date of signing, could be extended for two additional years by mutual written consent.

Costa Rica and South Korea: United for Costa Rican Education

In 2018, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education and the South Korean Education Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding again. Among the areas of cooperation under the MOU were the exchange of experiences, researchers and personnel, intercultural learning, co-organization of conferences, training programs for capacity building, technological innovation, mathematics learning, and early childhood care.

University sector: technology and innovation to boost competitiveness

On January 16, 2019, an agreement was signed to undertake the Hélice-UCR project, a joint initiative between the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the Republic of Korea, within the framework of bilateral cooperation. The project aimed to improve national competitiveness and productivity through technology and innovation.

South Korea's investment was $4.5 million from 2019 to 2022. Then UCR will construct a building of approximately 1,000 square meters near the Rodrigo Facio University campus in San Pedro de Montes de Oca to carry out the initiative.

Chun Hye-sun, head of the Latin America Office at the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), said, "UCR has well-established research capabilities and recognizes the importance of collaborating with the production sector. The fact that UCR already has a basic collaboration partnership with private companies through its startup accelerator (AUGE-UCR) and technology transfer unit (Proinnova-UCR) ensures that it is a good partner." "We believe that UCR, as an institution that has achieved triangular cooperation, will be able to play a leadership role in Latin America in the medium to long term through the dissemination of science, technology, and innovation," Chun added.

What is Hélice-UCR?

Hélice-UCR was created in 2019 based on the bilateral relationship between Costa Rica and South Korea. To develop the program, KOICA selected Korea University as a technical cooperation partner considering its experience and knowledge in innovation and startups. The Hélice UCR program seeks to foster the convergence of five key actors - academia, industry, government, civil society, and the environment - to generate innovative solutions to current problems through the implementation of a quintuple helix innovation model. The initiative also aims to strengthen UCR's innovation capacity through research alliances with the outside sector. Another goal is to promote the consolidation of Costa Rica's open innovation ecosystem and foster cooperation between industry, government, and academia based on the principles of interdisciplinary collaboration and university-to-university engagement.

Hélice-UCR project experience

The Directorate of Innovation Promotion and Development Linkage (DIPROVID), together with Korea University, offered an opportunity for startup projects or projects connecting the university and the outside sector, which is the second reason for the Hélice-UCR program. The program selected 19 projects to be funded in 2022 on $24,000 in grants. The fund, which was created on the basis of a cooperation agreement between UCR and KOICA, is managed by the UCR Foundation. The 19 selected projects will receive technical support for one year, and depending on the milestones achieved, they will be eligible to apply for a second phase of funding from KOICA.

Click para Innovar (Click for Innovation)

About 100 people participated in the latest edition of "Click para Innovar." The activity, called up by the Directorate of Innovation Promotion and Development Linkage (DIPROVID), allowed professors and researchers from the University of Costa Rica (UCR) to lay the groundwork for new collaborative projects between universities and SMEs, cooperatives, businesses, startups and other forms of production organizations from the outside sector. University-outside sector linkage projects take advantage of the scientific knowledge, laboratory availability, and existing capacity of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), which has great potential for working in linkages and partnerships with outside organizations that have field experience.

Costa Rica, South Korea sign joint declaration of strategic partnership

On the second day of his 2021 state visit to South Korea, Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado and South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed a joint declaration to upgrade the bilateral relationship from a comprehensive cooperative alliance to an action-oriented comprehensive partnership with a strategic perspective. The South Korean government provided US$10 million to Costa Rica to promote nine areas of cooperation.

Costa Rica emphasized the South Korean government's commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of a permanent peace. It also agreed on the need to resume inter-Korean dialogue as soon as possible and reaffirmed its support for the South Korean government's efforts to achieve tangible progress in the Korean Peninsula peace process, including the proposal to end the Korean War.

Promoting Korea through the Korean Corner of the Korean Studies Center in Costa Rica

The year 2022 was a year of celebrating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Costa Rica, for which the South Korean Embassy in Costa Rica held celebratory events. Under the same context, the Korean Studies Corner was opened on October 19, 2022 on the campus of the Universidad Luis Alberto Monju in Alajuela as an affiliate of the Korean Studies Center of the National Technical University. The Corner allows visitors to experience history, culture, landscape, romanticism, and iconic places, as well as get to know the national treasures of a country that is technologically advancing while preserving its roots and ancestral wisdom.

Eduvisión's strategic partnership with Korean publisher to teach English in Central America

E-Future, E-Public, and Seed Learning are teaching English to private school students in Central America using modern methodologies, interactive apps, and project-based learning (PBL). In Costa Rica, thanks to this strategic alliance, more than 30,000 students at the early childhood, primary, and secondary levels have used books from Korean publishers to learn English.

How are students learning about Korea?

Costa Rican students learn about Korea in middle school through the social studies program. The topics are developed by the Ministry of Education with the approval of the Higher Education Council, Costa Rica's education governing body.

The approved content is as follows "Make spatial recognition of the relevance of the conflict between North and South Korea to regional stability and the threat of a global nuclear conflict." In this regard, students investigate the causes and current consequences of various geopolitical processes occurring in different parts of the globe as a legacy of the Cold War. The information is complemented by maps and geospatial technologies.

How is South Korea presented in Costa Rican textbooks? Textbooks cover the content included in the curriculums approved by the Higher Education Council. In accordance with the respective curriculum, the conflict between North and South Korea is covered and contextualized with information related to diplomatic efforts or North Korean ballistic missile launches. What can be done to further promote South Korea in Costa Rican education and textbooks? • (As opposed to North Korea, which established a dictatorship based on a communist system) Contextualization of how South Korea's decision to choose a democratic system has led to its success in the economic arena and has made it one of the world's most developed countries. • South Korea's position on the name given to the sea it shares with Japan. On many maps, it is named "Sea of Japan" due to the past Japanese domination of the Korean Peninsula, but according to South Korea's position, it should be named "East Sea." • South Korea's diplomatic position on the South China Sea

Perceptions of South Korea in Costa Rica

“Costa Rica, as a country that has traditionally advocated for peace, recognizes the value of South Korea's actions for peace on the Korean Peninsula, which are undoubtedly valuable for the well-being of the people on the Korean Peninsula and regional stability."

President Alvarado’s visit to the border of the two Koreas in late 2021 was a powerful symbolic action of mutual friendship within the framework of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Costa Rica. Based on this bilateral relationship, the two countries share interests in peace, democracy, security, and human rights.

President Alvarado also reaffirmed his support for the efforts of the South Korean government in the Korean Peninsula peace process, including the proposed end to the Korean War, given that the two Koreas are technically still at war, as no peace treaty has been signed between them and only an armistice to cease hostilities was signed in 1953. What President Alvarado expressed is the sentiment of the Costa Rican people, who, as history has shown, consider peace and democracy to be the most important values that must be defended at all costs.

In the realm of culture, the K-pop music genre has conquered the hearts of Costa Ricans, who are called "tico." Thanks to the musical talent and immense qualities of Korean artists, Korean culture continues to expand beyond its borders. An example of this musical influence is rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style," which had most young people dancing along at the time and opened the door for other Korean singers who would go on to become hugely influential.