A creative future won’t come easy to Korea

About 80 percent of Koreans are said to acknowledge the Korean society gives higher credit to the so-called “label” of a person, such as academic background or social position, than to one’s idea itself. A survey shows that for this reason, half of Koreans are assessing the overall system or conditions of the Korean society are not ready to nurture creative people.

A nationwide survey jointly by the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Science under the Prime Minister’s Office and the Dong-A Ilbo, conducted Sunday among 1,000 people older than 20, finds the above results.

54.9 percent of respondents said "no" and only 15 percent said "yes" to the question: "Do you think that the Korean society is ready to nurture creativity or ideas of individuals?” In addition, 86.8 percent of respondents said that the Korean society is the so-called “label society,” where academic background, speck or social positions are more emphasized than one’s capability, while a meager 3.2 percent answered individual’s capacity, creativity or idea is respected in the Korean society.

Though President Park Geun-hye recently said, “To bring in a creative economy, we need a system that nurtures talents and enables individuals to push ahead with their brilliant ideas or inspirations,” the survey says the social or cultural infrastructure is not sufficient to boost the creative economy.

Many people in Sunday`s survey pointed out that the current uniform education system is not helping make a new economic growth engine to lead the creative economy. Lack of focus on creativity or entrepreneurship in the academic curriculum is also said as an obstacle to grow a creative growth engine of the economy. 82.5 percent of respondents said "no" to the question: "Have you ever learned or heard at school about starting a company, entrepreneurship or innovation?”

Park Jin-geun, the head of the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Science, said, “Establishing a new economic paradigm of the creative economy requires an overall change in our society to focus on individuals’ creative capacity in the all areas, including politics, economy, society and culture. All-around efforts to build the infra of the creative economy are in dire need.”

abc@donga.com