Ewha Girl's Foreign Language High School(EFLHS) is a private, girls' school that laid the early foundation for women's education in Korea.
It dates back to 1886 when Mary Scranton, a young Christian missionary came from across the Pacific hoping to open up the way to the modern education for Korean women. On May 31 in the same year, she established the first women's academy in Korea. It was a time when teaching women was simply unimaginable.
Though the school began with only one student, the classes grew in size as more and more talented young women knocked on the door to quench their thirst for learning. In 1887, the Korean Emperor Ko-jong bestowed a special name for this pioneering modern learning institute: Ewha Academy. Ewha, which means 'pear-tree blossom', is a traditional Korean symbol of purity and prudence.
Inspired by the Christian mission and the educational spirit of "Truth, Goodness and Beauty," Ewha stood firmly as an independence-promoting academy in Korea's turbulent modern History, weathering 35 years' Japanese occupation and the successive Korean War in 1950~53.
In 1991, Ewha took another historic challenge of opening a foreign language high school in order to uphold the highest academic standards and train women leaders as upstanding citizens of the world. Starting out with six majors (two class), the EFLHS administered its first entrance examination on November 10, 1991.
On March 2, 1992, under the new principal Miss Shim Chee-Sun, 308 freshmen enrolled and Ewha Foreign High School has been flourishing ever since. It is now under the direction of the third principal, Mr. Chang Duck-Hee, enrolling over 600 students. The majority of faculty members are graduates of Korea's top universities and graduate schools, who guarantee EFLHS students a high-quality education unequaled by any other high school in the nation.