Strengthening International Competitiveness of Korean Vocational Colleges

Korea’s economy has been growing rapidly. Korea recently ranked 10th in terms of the size of the economy in the world. Remarkable development of Korea’s economy has enhanced Korea’s global status higher than ever. With the rise of Korea’s global status, there have been on-going needs to strengthen international competitiveness of vocational colleges. However they have not been actively responding to the various domestic nor international needs. This study aims to analyze the international competitiveness of Korean vocational colleges under the current circumstances and explores initiatives and tasks that the government and vocational colleges need to implement in order to cope with various demands inside and outside Korea. This study adopted diverse research methods. References were reviewed focusing on the issues of international competitiveness of vocational colleges in Korea. To conduct survey and interviews, categories to be analyzed were developed and selected. The main purposes of the survey and interviews were to investigate the current status of international competitiveness of vocational colleges and to draw ideas for government policies and initiatives of vocational colleges. The survey was composed using stratified random samples from vocational colleges around the country. 75 persons working in the international cooperation department of vocational colleges answered the survey, and 19 foreign students in Korean vocational colleges were interviewed with similar agenda. A series of conferences were held with government authorities, professors of vocational colleges, and authorities from industries with a common view to developing initiatives and tasks for the government and vocational colleges...