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| Hong Kong students take the university entrance exam at a school in the city in April 2020. AP-Yonhap |
Inclusion of Korean in foreign language category will provide Hong Kong students with wider employment opportunities
By Kim Bo-eun
HONG KONG ― Hong Kong will include Korean in the foreign language category of the city's university entrance exam starting from 2025.
The Consulate General of South Korea in Hong Kong said Wednesday that Hong Kong's Examinations and Assessment Authority and Korea's National Institute for International Education had reached an agreement on the matter.
"The documents on the agreement are ready, but a physical ceremony for the memorandum of understanding (MOU) was postponed due to Hong Kong's COVID-19 restrictions," Deputy Consul General Park Kyongsig said.
Under the agreement, Hong Kong's test authority will allow students to submit scores for the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), taken in the last two years. Currently, Hong Kong's university entrance exam has French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Hindi and Urdu in its foreign language category.
"Since our students are interested in Korean culture, it will be appreciated that Korean will be included in our university entrance exam," said Cheung Wing Fung, the acting principal of Mu Kuang English School in Hong Kong, which offers Korean language as a required subject. "They will be able to develop their hobby academically."
Cheung said the school had adopted Korean language as part of its curriculum after conducting a survey among parents and students, amid the growing interest in Korean culture.
Discussions to offer Korean in the university entrance test began as the Consulate General of South Korea met with Hong Kong's education bureau in November of last year.
"The introduction of the Korean language test into Hong Kong's university entrance exam appears to have become possible due to the interest about Korea in Hong Kong as well as the elevated status of South Korea as a country around the world," Park said.
"This is also meaningful for graduates of Hong Kong schools, because with a proficiency in Korean, they will have a wider pool of opportunities when they seek jobs."
Currently, the opportunity to study Korean mostly comes at the university level. The University of Hong Kong offers Korean studies as a major, and a number of other universities offer Korean as a minor.
"We have seen that there has been interest in the Korean language among Hong Kong students due to exposure to Korean culture, but up until now, learning Korean was limited to a hobby," Korean Cultural Center Director Lee Young-ho said.
"When the Korean test is included in Hong Kong's university entrance exam, students will be able to learn Korean from an earlier stage, which will improve proficiency. Universities are also expected to expand Korean language courses," Lee said, adding the KCC will continue to offer opportunities for Hong Kongers to take part in Korean-language events.
It will be the first case in which the TOPIK test will be used in a university entrance exam. Currently, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, France and New Zealand offer a Korean language test of their own in their university entrance exams.
Driven by a growing interest in the country due to the popularity of Korean dramas and K-POP, there were 330,016 takers of the TOPIK test in 75 countries last year.
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