▲ Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute / Director Kim Yong-geun

According to a report, South Korea saw 309,000 births and 314,000 deaths in the year 2019. The numbers have a significant meaning in the Korean society as the number of the death surpassed the number of the birth for the first time since it was recorded. As the Korean society is getting into more aged, people’s interest in the manners of funeral have increased sharply.

To respond the trend fast, the Health and Welfare Ministry turned the funeral assistance certificate to national from private in 2012. It did not attract much attention from job seekers at first but they started to see its potential and the industry has grown fast that even 5 universities currently are running a related course alongside private institutes. 

Located in Jongno 5-ga, Seoul, Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute is an appointed training institute of the Employment and Labor Ministry. In other words, trainees at the institute can receive a state funding for the course. In order to be a certified funeral assistant, you must receive 300 hours of training at the government registered institutes.  

Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute runs the necessary 8 subjects including theory, law, hygiene, administration and management for 300 hours spread in 39 days. Top industry specialists are taking the steering wheel of each class for 250 hours in theory and the rest 50 hours in practice at 4 partner hospitals including Hallym University Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital and Chung ang University Hospital. It is notable that average 98% of students at the institute pass the training. 

Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute opened the door in 2012 and it boasts the longest history and scale among competitors. Graduates of the institutes are working in funeral service companies big or small nationwide and some of them are teaching students at universities. 

The institute boasts excellence for attention to detail training on enshrine, cleaning of the corpse, shroud and makeup which require high level of respect and dexterity, not to mention the administrational procedures and other practices. 

“Ideal funeral assistants must have a heart to treat the dead with respect and the bereaved family with sympathy and condolences. After all, a good funeral service is more about sharing the sadness with the family than the procedures which of course is important” says the institute director Kim Yong-geun. 

Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute has fostered around 1,000 funeral assistants since opening the door and around 50% of the funeral assistants starting their career in the year 2019 in Seoul are said to be from the institute. 

Kim say “Funeral assistants need to be professionally trained and certified in this time of increasing aging popularities in South Korea and Gangnam Funeral Service Training Institute will take the lead in the field.” PowerKorea