Hakman High School - Republic of Korea

Haknam High School, a coeducational government-funded upper secondary school in Daegu, South Korea, serving 797 students aged 15–18 with 88 staff, has built a distinctive identity as a student-centered character-education school. Its application for the Varkey Foundation's Global Schools Prize 2026 in the Character & Values Education category tells a compelling story of how a mainstream state school transformed itself into a model of whole-school moral formation.

At the heart of Haknam's approach is its integrated character brand STARS.ON (溫, meaning "warmth") and the "GLOW · GROW Leadership" framework, built on three core virtues: Responsibility, Care, and Cooperation. Character development is structured along a four-stage developmental roadmap — Self-understanding, Student agency, Internalized responsibility, and Social awareness (S–H–I–P) — ensuring values are treated as planned learning outcomes rather than slogans.

The school's flagship achievement is the Dream Book Club (꿈책모임), a student-led reading and dialogue movement that grew from 12 teams (25 students) to 26 teams (90 students) in a single year. Students commit to 20 minutes of daily reading, weekly discussions, and reflective posts, with an 80% participation threshold that transforms responsibility into a measurable, lived practice. Mixed-group recruitment deliberately pairs students with unfamiliar peers to build empathy and openness.

Other distinctive innovations include AI-supported emotional learning (AI-assisted journaling and digital empathy activities), Character Policy Angels (정책엔젤스) — where students co-design school policy — and the PERS:ON / STARS:ON Humanities Concert, now in its fourth year, featuring student speeches, performances, and expert-led dialogues on AI, metaverse, and ethics. The school has also pioneered cross-school collaboration through the "Chilgok Online Reading Debate League", uniting six high schools (Haknam, Seongseo, Gyeongmyeong Girls', Jungang, Gyeonghwa Girls', and Gyeongbuk Girls') for inter-school literary debate.

Student voice is institutionalised through a monthly Student Representative Council reporting directly to the principal, and a Student Court (자치법정) where students serve as judges, prosecutors, and defence counsel in real disciplinary cases. Ethical reflection is cultivated through World Café dialogue protocols with Padlet-based written reflection, Mindfulness Week, and semester-based service-learning across all student clubs.

Lead teacher Ms. Chey Shikang, endorsed by Principal Jaeyoung Choi, is an English teacher recognised for pastoral care, co-authored publications (Visual Thinking in the Classroom), EBS educational broadcasting appearances, and a team grand prize in the national Character Education Competition. Her work has been featured in Korea's Education Plaza magazine.

What makes Haknam deserving of global recognition is its coherence: character education is not an add-on but the institutional DNA — measurable (participation thresholds, official student records), inclusive (open to all regardless of academic level), student-led (policy councils, peer courts, reading clubs), and values-aligned across curriculum, rituals, leadership, and community outreach. In a Korean education system often dominated by exam pressure, Haknam has proven that a public school can prioritize warmth, empathy, and civic responsibility — and measurably improve student wellbeing, engagement, and culture as a result.