Abstract
With the enactment of the Gifted and Talented Education Promotion Act (GTEPA) (2000) and the Gifted and Talented Education Promotion Enforcement Decree (GTEPED) (2002), South Korea acquired a full-fledged legal system for implementing gifted and talented education. Since 2000, the administration of gifted and talented education in South Korea entered a new level of development compared to the previous era. With the enactment, official definitions of giftedness and gifted and talented education were adopted. Accordingly, gifted education was recognized and promulgated into society. The government mapped out a comprehensive plan for gifted education on legally firm ground with the concerted efforts from various ministries in the name of gifted and talented education. New types of educational institutions and administrative systems for gifted education were founded such as gifted schools, gifted classes, gifted centers, and departments for gifted education. Lastly, the importance of educating each student in accordance with his/her potential gained more impetus when extremely low birthrates and an aging population threaten the sustainability of Korean society. In general, the enactment of the gifted education law acts as a divide of eras, before and after the law.
Conclusion
In this paper, the legal system of gifted education in Korea is presented. As mentioned earlier, there are two kinds of legal systems for gifted education − The GTEPA legislated by the National Assembly and the GTEPED legislated by the Ministry of Education as a presidential decree. The enactment of these two laws contributed to the development of gifted education with no comparison or precedent in the history of education in Korea. Implications and issues are discussed below in terms of the law.
