Greetings From the President of Gwangju National University of Education

You are invited to the 4th Asian Roundtable of Presidents of the Universities of education. This roundtable will commence on February 2, 2016 at Gwangju National University of Education. During the past three roundtables, leaders and educators were able to have constructive conversations regarding education demonstrating the significance of these roundtables in contributing to the educational progress in Asia.

The topic of this round table is ‘Cultivating humanity in education’. Performance-oriented and competitive nature of the contemporary society has brought to our schools myriads of issues. In order to solve these issues, we must contemplate the fundamental roles of __ education. The foundation of the education stems not from a person dedicated to societal functions, but from a person who encompasses characters. Such as, ‘the quality of education cannot surpass that of the educator,’ the fundamentals of character education is absolutely affected by the characters of educators. It is our hope that through this roundtable, we will be able to examine the current status of the character education in Asia and beyond, and exchange various opinions of character education from different regions. In addition, we wish to establish a consortium for character education that will incorporate the results of the roundtable.

Gwangju National University of Education, which is located at city of culture, Gwangju, in the Southwest of Korean peninsula, has a long history of 92 years.. Despite its small size, Gwangju National University of Education is a strong institution _ leading the field of education in South Korea. Having the goal of developing educators who truly care, our university is striving to develop characters and prospective educators through programs that are differentiating from other universities, such as the ‘Teaching Assistant Program’ and‘Teacher`s character program’. On behalf of Gwangju National University of Education, I would like to invite the leaders and educators of Asia and beyond who will play important roles in the education in Asia to this roundtable.

Logo of 4th ARPUE

The logo’s motive comes from the Korean tripolar patterns that symbolize the sky (Blue), the land (Red), the human (Yellow). These tripolar patterns originate from Korean traditional ideology that is called humanitarianism (弘益人間). Humanitarianism is seeking for the goodness of all mankind and is the goal of Korean public education. It connotes the meaning of this forum whose main theme is the cultivating humanity in education.