Daejeon has been selected as a "2026 Vocational Education Innovation District," allowing the city to accelerate the training of high school graduates tailored to strategic industries.
The Daejeon Metropolitan Government and the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education announced Wednesday that they had been chosen for the "2026 Vocational Education Innovation District" project organized by the Ministry of Education.
The Vocational Education Innovation District project is a program in which local governments and education offices cooperate to systematically train vocational high school talent needed for regional strategic industries, while building a region-based vocational education model that connects employment with continued learning.
Selected as a new metropolitan district, the city will receive 750 million won annually for three years starting in 2026 to carry out the project.
The city has presented the vision "Learning, Work, and Life — a FIT in Daejeon," and plans to train talent in strategic industry fields including semiconductors, smart factories, robots, smart control, drone surveying, and railway vehicle management.
The city also plans to establish a Vocational Education Innovation District support center to create a cooperative framework involving the city, the education office, vocational high schools, universities, and companies.
In particular, the city plans to build a system for cultivating locally rooted talent by analyzing industry demand centered on Daejeon's strategic industries such as defense and bio, operating job-focused curricula, and designing customized growth paths that connect vocational high school students' employment with continued learning.
"We will build a virtuous cycle in which the excellent talent needed for regional strategic industries can find employment and settle in the region," said Oh Su-geun, director general of the city's Education Policy and Strategy Bureau.
