S Korea's Lee vows to accommodate yearnings of younger generations

The ruling party's defeat the Seoul mayoral election last week demonstrated younger generations' yearning for change, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Monday. "Last week, we had by-elections. Looking at the results, I was able to reaffirm the aspirations of young people for change," Lee said in his biweekly radio address. Park Won-soon, a lawyer-turned-civic activist backed by opposition parties, defeated Na Kyung-won of the ruling Grand National Party in the closely watched race that many say will be a prelude to the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2012. Park, a political neophyte, enjoyed overwhelming support among voters under the age of 40, indicating the younger generations' disillusionment with old partisan politics here. "With two global crises that descended one after the other over the past years, many young people feel deep anxieties about their future as well as the present. As a society, we should give much thought to how we can provide stability and give hope to young people," the president said in a speech. To address the problem, the government is "giving special consideration to creating jobs for high school graduates," the president added, vowing to raise its mandatory quota of new recruits among high school graduates and build more vocational high schools. "(The) excessively high academic inflation is a huge waste in social and economic terms and the main culprit behind the recent youth unemployment," the president said, referring to a situation where eight out of 10 South Korean high school graduates go to college. "I hope that we will work together to carve out a society where there is no discrimination based on academic degrees and where high school graduates, too, can pursue their dreams to the fullest and receive decent treatment," Lee said.