Seoul Superintendent Jung Keun-sik pushes for critical thinking in AI era

Seoul Superintendent of Education Jung Keun-sik announced a push to pivot school curricula away from rote memorization and toward deep critical thinking, as generative artificial intelligence systems generate plausible answers to complex prompts within seconds.

Shifting Away From Rote Memorization

Artificial intelligence is evolving so quickly that schools must change what they prioritize in teaching. When software can instantly supply conventional answers, the primary task of education becomes teaching students how to formulate precise questions, evaluate competing arguments, and apply foundational knowledge to novel problems. Superintendent Jung emphasized that true educational value lies not in measuring baseline memorization, but in tracking how students comprehend, utilize, and grow through the learning process itself.

Classroom Realities and Grading Pressures

Translating this conceptual shift into daily classroom practice requires extensive instructional design. Teachers must build inquiry-driven lessons, evaluate diverse student viewpoints, and deliver individualized written feedback. These demands become more urgent as high school credit systems and internal assessment frameworks evolve, creating heightened pressure to maintain absolute fairness and reliability in grading.

Launching the Support Center Hub

To sustain these changes across public schools, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education established the Curriculum and Evaluation Support Center. Rather than operating as a routine administrative inspection unit, the center functions as a specialized research hub designed to bridge the gap between theoretical policymaking and daily classroom realities. The organization will systematically consolidate fragmented research functions to guide regional educational innovation.

Building Evidence-Based Evaluation Models

The center’s operational mandate focuses on concrete support mechanisms rather than expanding bureaucratic overhead. Researchers will develop evidence-based teaching and assessment models, assist educators with planning and grading analysis, and build proactive support systems to resolve classroom difficulties before administrative failures occur. Insights gathered from these evaluation datasets will feed directly back into regional policy updates, forming a continuous loop where student learning, teacher instruction, and assessment standards reinforce one another.