"Foreigners Taking Over? We're Here Too" Teens Build Houses on School Grounds [Report]

A Visit to Korea Mobility High School:
Building a House on the School Grounds

Korea Mobility High School’s training site in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. Fifteen second-year students from the Smart City Department were sweating under their safety helmets. They are participating in the second round of the “Building Tomorrow” project, where they construct a zero-energy wooden house using solar eco-friendly energy. The plan is to complete the house from the floor to the roof over 150 hours in total.

When we visited the site on the 30th of last month, work on tiling and gypsum board installation was in full swing. This project is part of the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s commissioned project, the “Specialized High School-Linked Youth Construction Workforce Training Program,” and this year, KRW 65 million in government funds was provided. While the Managing Ministry is the Ministry of Labor, issues such as attracting young workers, the spread of Zero Energy Buildings (ZEB), and training practical personnel for smart cities—which fall under the purview of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport—are all deeply connected to the reality of this site.

On the 30th of last month, Junmoon Lee, a Master of South Korea, is teaching students the method of gypsum board installation at the Korean Mobility High School training site in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Seoyoon Choi

"You need to set this up at a right angle. Like this, here." At the strict guidance of Junmoon Lee, a Master Carpenter of South Korea, teenage future construction workers continued their practice in a sweat. Rather than regular school teachers, Masters and Skilled Craftspersons act as instructors, passing down their expertise on site. The Korea Master Craftsman Association developed the curriculum, dispatched instructors, and the Construction Workers’ Mutual Aid Association under the Ministry of Labor supported and supervised the training costs.

Student Kwanwoo Kim, whom we met at the site, said, “Trying something once is much better than learning from a book a hundred times.” Yeongin Kim, who was cutting gypsum board, added, “At first it was hard, but as I got used to it, I could feel myself improving.” Min Kim, who is considering a career in construction, commented, “It’s great to experience the work environment in advance. If I master the skills, I can use them for the rest of my life—it seems like quite a good job.”

On the 30th of last month, Yang Hoon, a construction execution technician, demonstrated with his left hand the method of installing bathroom tiles to a student who was confused about the working direction due to being left-handed at the practice site of Korea Mobility High School in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Seo-yoon Choi

Currently, most construction sites are supported by workers in their fifties and sixties, while the influx of younger workers has almost completely dried up. According to Construction Workers’ Mutual Aid Association statistics, the number of technical construction workers last year was 1.34 million, a decrease of 117,000 (8%) compared to the previous year. The average age is 51.7 years old. The Mutual Aid Association forecast that this year, the number of domestic skilled workers will fall short by about 300,000 compared to demand. Even with foreign laborers filling the gaps, a labor shortage is still expected to persist.

Seongpil Hong, principal of Korea Mobility High School, said, “On construction sites, aside from aging experts, there are only foreign workers left. If fair social treatment and income are guaranteed, there is no reason for young people to avoid construction work.”

While waiting for working conditions to improve, the school decided to overhaul its educational environment first. Mingil Lee, a teacher at Mobility High School, took the initiative to make the training facility as realistic as possible. He contacted each tool company directly to ask if they could lend equipment for free so that students could practice with real gear as on site. Makita, a power tool company, responded, and equipment worth KRW 20 million—including 21 types of tools such as circular saws, table saws, and drills—was supplied to the site.

On the 30th of last month, system scaffolding was installed around the wooden house built by students at the Korean Mobility High School practice site in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. The school improved the practical training environment by using scaffolding instead of ladders when working at heights starting from the second term, supported by the government this year. Photo by Seoyoon Choi

Concerned about the possibility of his graduates getting hurt on worksites, Teacher Lee even conducted site visits to actual construction sites. He said, “At tier-one construction companies, workers are immediately sent off-site if they are caught drinking or if they don’t wear safety gear. The safety management is far stricter than I expected, so I felt confident sending our students.” He then applied those safety standards to the school’s training ground. He removed A-frame ladders, which pose a high risk of falls, and installed system scaffolding. Every morning, they do group exercises and hold a safety briefing just like on a real site before beginning work.

The experiment inside the school leads directly to hands-on experience at actual construction sites. This reflects the reality of job-seeking in the construction industry, where, without an open hiring system, work is found through networks and team-based contracts. Relationships formed with site experts during training quickly translate into job opportunities.

Of the students who participated in this class last year, three will practice at large construction company apartment sites this month. On this day, as they prepared for their deployment, they underwent their final training session at the school’s training ground. Unlike their second year, when instructors guided every step, now they build a small bathroom by reading blueprints themselves, only asking for help from master craftspersons when they are stuck. After building a whole house at the school from scratch, these students go through about a week of intensive training before heading out to real apartment construction sites.

On the 30th of last month, at the practice site of Korea Mobility High School in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, wooden house practice is being conducted under a large shade tent installed so that students can work out of the sunlight. Photo by Seoyoon Choi

Previously, when students were sent unprepared to specialized construction companies for internships, many could not last a week before returning. To address this, a mentoring stage was added after the in-school practical training.

Yonghak Kim, Chairman of the Korea Master Craftsman Association and President of the Korea Construction Craftsmanship Association, who led curriculum development and guided technical and safety instruction for this project, said, “No matter how talented a student is, it’s hard to endure on site without preparation. That’s because, in the field, trainees are not regarded as ‘future colleagues to be nurtured,’ but as ‘immediate hands for hire.’”

He added, “I earnestly asked the managers at the sites where our students train to assign at least one mentor to look after each trainee. Just as the results you get from artificial intelligence depend on how you ask questions, trainees can achieve even greater productivity if taught properly.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.