Task force aims to build a prevention-focused safety culture for high school work-study students, targeting 100% safety education participation by 2030, with expanded VR training and hazard-spotting campaigns

[Provided by HRD Korea]
[Provided by HRD Korea]

The Human Resources Development Service of Korea and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency have formed a joint task force to prevent industrial accidents and strengthen safety capabilities among students in the high school work-study program.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor, HRD Korea and KOSHA launched the "High School Work-Study Safety Culture Promotion Task Force" at HRD Korea's headquarters in Ulsan on Monday, announcing plans to spread a prevention-focused safety culture and build a tailored safety support system for high school student workers.

The high school work-study program is a vocational education system in which students combine classroom instruction with on-site corporate training. Because students with limited industrial experience are exposed to real working environments, the need to prevent safety accidents and strengthen their capacity for self-protection has consistently been raised.

Safety accidents involving high school work-study participants numbered four in 2022, four in 2023, eight in 2024 and four in 2025. The government has designated "a society where life and safety come first" as a national policy priority and has set a course to strengthen safety education starting at the pre-workforce stage.

The two agencies have jointly run hands-on safety training and outreach safety education since last year. They provided hands-on safety training to 1,204 students at 34 schools, including Gwangju Electronics Technical High School, and delivered outreach safety education to 364 students at 17 schools, including Gyeonggi Smart High School. They also produced safety content for the culinary and baking sectors and distributed 600 copies of a safety guide.

With the task force now launched, the scope of cooperation expands beyond basic education support to encompass identifying school needs, developing content, delivering experiential training and spreading a broader safety culture.

The task force will be co-led by HRD Korea's director of work-study support and KOSHA's director of education. It will focus on three core priorities: expanding hands-on safety education, spreading a prevention-centered safety culture and strengthening school-tailored safety support.

The task force plans to expand safety experience centers and mobile VR education sessions, and raise students' safety awareness through key industrial safety messaging and a "spot the hazard" campaign. It will also regularly identify safety education needs and on-site difficulties at participating schools, jointly managing improvement tasks.

The two agencies set a goal of achieving 100% safety education participation among high school work-study students by 2030. To that end, they will expand the development of occupation-specific safety content and professional safety training for both teachers and student workers.


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