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3. Creativity, Education and Green Talent
a. Why Creativity?
The future oriented green growth model urges for the reform of talent and the
human resources paradigm. If the core competency of a talent in the past industrial
society was how to efficiently solve a given problem, the core competency of a
talent in this new green growth paradigm is creativity, which is to create new things,
doubt and question the existing paradigm and turn the premise upside down. Such
capability was also required in post-industrial and knowledge based society,
however, it has become a much more critical quality to become a talent that leads
the new paradigm of green growth. Particularly, the creativity that is developed
during youth is a basic qualification for nurturing talents as green technology and
science technology human resources. In addition, since creativity can be revealed in
diverse areas, creative talents can be nurtured in diverse areas as well, thereby
utilizing talents efficiently.
Creativity is needed in all stages of life, and it can also be partly learned,
particularly during early childhood and youth. Despite a consensus that creative
talent is necessary, issues on what is creativity, who is creative talent and how they
are raised is still being discussed in diverse ways without any agreed answers.
Generally, the dictionary defines creativity as “capability of creating or discovering
new things” and as the abililty to think differently and solve problems in different
ways. Something that is “new” and “different” are important elements of creativity,
however, utility and appropriacy, which are related to problem solving ability is also
important. An idea should be new and to utilize this idea, a problem solving ability is
needed as well.
b. Creative Education System
The definition of creativity is still open and there are many arguments on how
to nurture creativity. However, creativity based on self thinking and a culture that
allows the failure of diverse experiments and problem solving skills should all be
emphasized in order to develop creative talents. Statistical numbers indicate that the
current formal and potential curriculm in Korea does not promote creativity. Results
from international academic achievement tests from PISA and TIMSS show that
Korean students (age 15) are beyond the average of other OECD countries, but the
learning efficiency index shows that Korea is far below that of Japan or Finland who
have high academic achievement just as Korea does. For example, Finland has a
similar level of academic achievement as Korea, but they spend only two thirds of
the study time of Korean students. Also, Japan, even though they score slightly
lower than Korea, spends 30% less studying time than Korean students. Therefore,