Perspectives on General Subjects in the Vocational High Schools

Emphasis on work-based learning has become an international trend as an policy measure to reduce youth unemployment and skill mismatch by strengthening the linkage between schools and labor market. In korea, strong policy have been implemented to increase employment rate of graduates of vocational high schools who used to pursue higher education. As an outcome of a series of policies in recent years, peoples’ perspectives have been changed, considering learning specific skills are the most important in vocational high schools under the social slogan of “building the meritocratic society”, the meaning of which is rather obscure. Reflecting these trends, general subjects have been gradually neglected in vocational high schools in Korea. This study started based on a sense of crisis that while a society is over-emphasizing specific skills, there might be a danger of overlooking arguments that specific skills oriented education can not ensure the later period of workers’ lives than does the concept-based education due to lack of adaptability to the changing society. The aims of this study is to contemplate the purpose of learning general subjects in vocational high schools and explore the ways to improve the quality of vocational high school education with regard to general subjects, in a way that it can not only contribute the need of labor market but also for the good of student’s lifelong competitiveness and human resources development at the national level. Various approaches have been deployed in this study such as literatures review, interviews with teachers and students, and quantitative analysis based on survey with teachers and student. ..