President Park Geun-hye, currently on a state visit to Switzerland, visited the Commercial-Industrial Vocational School Bern (GIBB) on January 21 to learn more about the country’s vocational education system. President Park looked around the classrooms and facilities while being accompanied by Swiss President Didier Burkhalter and his spouse.

At the school, she was first briefed by Bernhard Pulver, member of the Governing Council of the Canton of Bern, and then met with GIBB Director Sonja Morgenegg-Marti to talk about vocational education and training systems and current conditions at the school. She observed computer language and engineering classes and chatted with students. In a meeting led by the GIBB director, President Park and her Swiss counterpart discussed measures to enhance cooperation in vocational education and training between Korea and Switzerland.



President Park’s visit to GIBB was designed to give her administration a benchmark against which they could measure Korean vocational schools. Korea is trying to develop a systemic vocational education system which recognizes the authority of specialized technical experts and is trying to find opportunities to expand cooperation between Korea and Switzerland in this regard. Cheong Wa Dae explained that her visit laid the foundation for the two countries’ forward-looking relationship in vocational education cooperation as both Korea and Switzerland have achieved economic development by fostering talented human resources despite the lack of natural resources.

On the same day, President Park met with the CEO of Cisco Systems John T. Chambers as part of her itinerary to meet business leaders from world-leading international firms. She discussed with the Cisco CEO measures to cooperate with her administration’s creative economy vision and how to collaborate in the fast-growing “Internet of Everything” (IoE) sector. The IoE is a communications network and ICT infrastructure which processes a vast amount of data and connects all human beings and their things via the Internet: cars, watches, refrigerators, smart phones, et cetera.



President Park explained to the Cisco CEO that her strategy for the creative industries is based on human creativity and entrepreneurship in order to create more jobs and overcome an era of slow growth. She expressed her strong will to lift unnecessary regulations that inhibit people from starting businesses. Chambers held the same view on President Park’s vision for the creative industries. He responded that deregulation is necessary in order for small- and medium-sized firms to successfully realize their creative economy potential.

Hoping to expand cooperation with Korean firms in the IoE sector, Chambers proposed to build an IoE innovation center to support technology development, to offer business leadership education and training programs for youth and to establish a cooperation network with Korean firms. He further expressed his active will to make more investments in Korea.

President Park said that cooperation between Cisco and Korean firms will hold great significance by helping them to successfully implement their plans for the creative industries and achieve mutual development, as Cisco owns many of the leading IoE technologies. She hoped that more concrete follow-up measures will be carried out in the near future in cooperation with the Korean Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning.

By Wi Tack-whan, Yoon Sojung
Korea.net Staff Writers
arete@korea.kr