Chinese character education in Korea

When I first came to Korea in 1965, Chinese characters, called "hanja" in Korean, could be seen everywhere — road signs, names on buildings, advertisements and even in newspapers. However, hanja has all but vanished. Newspapers no longer have headlines in Chinese characters, we see very few on signs around town — maybe at a Chinese restaurant? And in the field of education, the list of 900 characters mandatory for middle school students to learn and 1800 for high school students hasn’t been seen for a while. But a group testifying to the National Assembly for a committee on education is hoping that it will change. They will be calling for a revival of Chinese character education in Korea. Their argument is that knowing the Chinese characters that underpin 60 percent of Korean vocabulary will help students become more literate, articulate and knowledgeable about the language they speak and write. I will be one of those testifying at the committee meeting. I have produced a couple of videos on my YouTube channel about the added value of Chinese character knowledge in learning and us

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