Famous Educational Establishments in Pangyo

The government announced that it is considering ways of inducing the major educational institutes, domestic or foreign, and domestic special graduate schools into New Pankyo City, which in turn will be established in Paygyo Dong, Boondang Gu, Sungnam City, Kyunggi Province. It is reportedly also considering construction of additional 3000 households in the new city, coming to 8,000 in total. Originally, it announced on September 4th that the new city would accommodate 5,000 households.

On September 8th, Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) and Korean Land Corporation announced that they are positively reviewing ways to construct an education park of 39600 m2 in the center of the new city.

Into that area, they plan to induce graduate schools specializing in industrial technology and design, and foreign educational institutes renown in fields such as English, hair styling and jewelry.

If a graduate school or institute should decide to settle in the educational park, the government would give the school or institute initiatives such as a lower land price and a privileged subscription right.

Through these measures, the government expects to absorb considerable volume of educational demand concentrated in Kangnam area of Seoul by raising the quality of education found in Paygyo area. At the same time, the government can also avoid violation of the law prohibiting any establishment of educational organizations such as a college in and in the vicinity of Seoul. The law is conceived to deter the concentration of the population in that region.

Kwon Oh-yul, an MOCT official in charge of housing, disclosed, “A task force is set up consisting of Kyunggi Province, Sungnam City, Land Corporation and Housing Corporation. The task force is working on a project to determine the size, level of educational organizations and ways to induce them in the new city. The project will be done by November.”

The MOCT and Korean Land Corporation (KLC) also try to find ways to increase 3,000 households in the new city, considering the capacity the new city may accommodate and the infrastructure thereof.

According to the ’98 blueprint by Sungnam City for that area, there is amble room for the population of 85,000, which exceeds the capacity announced on Sep. 4 by the MOCT (i.e. 74,000). Thus, the new city is deemed to have more space for additional construction.

One KCL official said, “If we build additional 3,000 houses in the new city, the population density will be 91/ha, half of that in Boondang (198/ha). Just to deter skyrocketing of prices, more houses should be constructed.”

Jae-Seong Hwang Ki-Jeong Ko jsonhng@donga.com koh@donga.com