[Tae-Joon Park Commermoration] Tae-Joon Park’s Passion on Education
[Tae-Joon Park Commermoration] Tae-Joon Park’s Passion on Education
  • Reporter Reo Ye-jin
  • 승인 2012.01.01 13:12
  • 댓글 0
이 기사를 공유합니다

“My last wish is producing winners of the Nobel Prize in science.”

Tae-Joon Park, the founder of POSTECHwas famous as the founder of the iron and steel industry in Korea and led the industry to the top position of Global market. Therefore, he is often called“Steel King.” He holds status with the past president of Korea, Park Chung-hee and started the iron and steelbusiness under the support of the president. Though the business did not seem tobe a success at first, the factory was constructed in Pohang and developed quickly as one of Korea’s main industries.  With the development of the industry, there are four more achievements of Park: Politics, Economics, Soccer, and Education. Among them, he especially emphasized education and did invest on it munificently by thinking that Korea cannot develop further without good quality of education. There are four methods how he contributed to education.

Jecheol Scholarship Association
Tae-Joon Park founded Jaecheol Scholarship Association with 60 million KRW in 1971. He started constructing institutes in order of elementary, middle, and high schools in Pohang and Gwangyang and endeavored to offer a high level of education. The association was constructed and managed with presentation of POSCO purely and its aim of construction as leading Korea through the education. Moreover, there was a studying abroad program called POSCO World Academy Club from 1985 to 1994. It chooses five intelligent students and sends each of them to the United States, England, Japan, Germany, and France with great amount of scholarship similar to the initial salary from a large cooperation. Moreover, when he was living in Japan, he called students getting the scholarship and living in Japan to his house and cared for them with great interest.

POSCO TJ Park Foundation
The original scholarship association was extended to POSCO TJ Park Foundation in September 2005.  This corporation was created in order to participate in a much wider contribution tosociety such as raising young scientists, exchange between Asian counties, and donating activities.

POSCO Educational Foundation (POSEF)
POSCO Educational Foundation was established in 1971 in order to develop the talented people who will contribute in development of Korea. It has the ideology that no genius can be a great man if he does not refine himself continuously and invests three different types of education such as education as welfare, professional education and special education for gifted children. Pochel High School in Pohang and GwangyangJecheol High School, founded by POSEF, possess top national academic grades. In addition, in the scholastic achievement test, the elementary and middle school students supported by POSEF got higher marks than those in Gangnam, Seoul. In case of professional education, it educates athletes in elementary, middle, and high school and raises them to the World Sports stars.

Foundation of POSTECH
Tae-Joon Park constructed POSTECH in 1985 to put his dream of establishinga world-classuniversity like California Institute of Technology (CALTECH). Therefore, he provided scholarships to students and engaged the best professors. Moreover, in order to invite Dr. Hongil Kim as the first president of POSTECH, he gave Kim power to decide everything about the University. He even mentioned that if a student shows great outcome and requires the school to paint walls gold, he will paint it with real gold.” It shows how much he cares about the students and encourages them to study hard.
The four types of educational foundation express Tae-Joon Park’s passion on education in Korea very well. With his great support and interest, Korea could grow into a country that can compete with foreign countries and raise global scientists.