Starting next year, the so-called free semester system will be implemented in all middle schools.
 
The Education Ministry on Tuesday announced the plan, which will allow middle school students to explore their talents and map out their future careers for one semester without being bound by tests.  
 
The ministry will provide an average of 20 million won, or around 17-thousand U.S. dollars, in special subsidies for each school to introduce the new semester system.
 
Under the system, schools will create more than 170 hours of free semester activities and not use written exams to assess students.

Middle schools can choose when students take the free semester -- the first or second semester of their first year or the first semester of the second year.
 
The Education Ministry has devised around 163-thousand programs in roughly 78-thousand-900 venues, which will provide hands-on activities for students in their free semester.