College of electrical and computer engineering

News Letter by Department of Software Engineering

Title: Educational ties between South Korea and Uzbekistan

The Department of Software Engineering at College of Electrical and Computer Engineering held English Leadership Camp for this academic year which is a joint effort by four universities, namely, Chungbuk National University, Korea National University of Transportation, Korea National University of Education, Pai Chai University. Through the English Leadership Camp it is aimed to blend English language teaching and foster potential future leaders with communication skills that are vital in the era of globalization in 21st century. This is an ongoing yearly camp that traditionally culminates in an event of overseas volunteering activity that participants join to perform series of lectures and seminars to a developing country students. Participants of the overseas volunteering activity were selected based on their merit from a list of applicants and therefore appear to be highly competitive and motivated students.

This year overseas volunteering event was held January 21-30 in joint cooperation with National University of Uzbekistan which is top university in the field of natural sciences in Uzbekistan. Following orientation in Chungbuk National University, after arrival in Uzbekistan volunteers taught foundations of web design and programming to students of National University of Uzbekistan during a week long period. Mornings were lectures and evenings were teamwork time which was followed by sightseeing visits to places in Tashkent and cultural evenings. Korean and Uzbek students enjoyed equally classroom and outside activities that took place during this period. Lectures covered topics from basic HTML and CSS to more advanced JavaScript and dynamic web page creation techniques. Each volunteer student was teamed with three Uzbek students and worked on a final project everyday afternoon to be presented to a jury of professors at the end of the trainings.

The event culminated when three teams were selected for the first, second and third places. The first place winning “Brainstormers” literally stormed the audience with their fantastic presentation skills and cleverly written web site which also had an Android App developed. At the same time, “Dream Team” members impressed the jury of professors with their well thought out content rich website which promotes Korean and Uzbek language. The website has various features such as dictionary, audio, video, quizzes, cultural and many other sections in both languages targeted for bi-directional educational effect for language learners of both languages. Finally, the team winning the third place presented their “Happy Math” named project with math rich content aimed at teaching the subject to kids and elementary school students. Great were the projects and so were prizes starting from Galaxy Gear S3 for first place, Galaxy Tab A6 and Samsung Gear for second and third places.

Of course, the volunteering visit is also an opportunity to promote cultural exchange which is why Korean students visited places of cultural importance every evening during their stay in Tashkent. They have visited Amir Temur Museum and Square, Minor Mosque, Monument of Courage and many other places with plenty of Uzbek restaurants to taste the local food. During weekend, visit was paid to the Samarkand via high speed KTX like Afrosiyob train which enabled departure and arrival within the same day. Samarkand is a historical city of Uzbekistan similar to Gyeongju in Korea with lots of places of historical and cultural importance. Overall, the trip was very interesting and full of experience which is why most of the students felt they would stay more days if possible.

It is important to note that this event is a result of ongoing cooperation between various organizations of South Korea and Uzbekistan. For example, one of the leading universities, Tashkent University of Information Technologies named after Mukhammad al-Khorazmiy (TUIT) and Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) signed protocol on realization of the project “Implementation of integrative educational information system TUIT” in 2018-2021. This project was developed within the framework of cooperation of TUIT and KOICA specialists and envisages creation, development and implementation of “e-learning” (organization of educational process) and “e-library” (electronic library) systems, as well as providing TUIT with technical means necessary for effective operation of all components of developed solutions. In addition, delegation of the KOICA visited Inha University in Tashkent. The main purpose of the visit was to discuss the possibility of participation of South Korean experts in raising professional level of programmers of this university. At the meeting, representatives of the university and KOICA discussed issues of developing mutually beneficial cooperation in the sphere of improving the education system and creating new opportunities for young professionals. In particular, the sides considered possibility of attracting new volunteers from South Korea for teaching some disciplines in the IUT. One volunteer, who teaches the Korean language to university students has been already involved with the assistance of KOICA.

The relationship between South Korea and Uzbekistan in the field of education is immense too. Historically, many students from Uzbekistan come to the leading universities of South Korea to continue their education in Master or PhD programs. Now, there are several Korean education institutions that broadly operate in Uzbekistan. For example, Inha University in Tashkent is the symbol of cooperation between Uzbekistan and South Korea in education and the only fu