The political and institutional basis of Korea’s skill formation system

Abstract

Korea’s developmental skill formation system was shaped in the 1970s by the Korean developmental state that proactively sought rapid Heavy and Chemical Industrialisation as the nation’s overarching goal. Vocational education at the upper secondary level and post-school in-company training in particular were strategically nurtured and closely managed by the state to supply the skilled workforce necessary, engendering a skill formation system subject to the state’s policies. The state’s tight control of the skill formation system was largely loosened in the 1980s, but since the 1990s it began to transform into a ‘post-developmental’ skill formation system geared toward Korea’s increasingly knowledge-based and globalising economy. Although it is still in the making, the post-developmental skill formation system is significantly different from the previous system in that the focus has shifted to vocational education at the secondary and the tertiary levels, whereas in-company vocational training is being gradually marginalised. Furthermore, the post-developmental skill formation system in Korea is both state-led and market-based, reflecting fundamental and dynamic changes in the nature of the Korean state since the 1990s.

Keywords:

• Korea
• developmental state
• skill formation
• vocational education and training

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government [NRF-2012-2012S1A5B5A07036468].

Notes

1. Suh (2002, 81) points out that the Korean Assembly’s deliberation on the VTL took so long (18 months) because it was considered to be of great importance, as it would have a wide range of ramifications on society once enacted.

2. After Park Chung Hee‘s assassination in 1979, Park’s all-out HCI programme was paced and adjusted by the Chun Doo Hwan regime (1980–1987). The Chun regime dismantled the HCIPC and merged it into the Ministry of Commerce in 1980, while reinstating the EPB as the powerful super agency (Park 2011, 266, 278).

3. Furthermore, whereas higher education in the 1970s was rigidly controlled by the Park regime’s admission quota system and PECE, the Chun regime allowed the rapid expansion of Korea’s higher education system with motives more socio-political than economic (Ihm 1999, 314; Jeong and Armer 1994, 539; Kim and Park 1990, 124–5; Shin 2005, 23). The enrolment rate for higher education in Korea was 6.4% in 1975, but increased to 11.1% in 1980, 22.4% in 1985 and 22.6% in 1990 (KEDI 2003, 7).

4. In fact, between 1991 and 1999, knowledge-based industries, including high-technology manufacturing, communication services, finance and insurance and business services, increased from 14.7% of the GDP to 20.5%, with an average annual real growth rate of 13.7%, while the other industries had a growth rate of only 4.1% (Dahlman and Andersson 2000, 32). The yearly contribution of the information and technology sector to real economic growth between 1997 and 2003 averaged around 40%, marking the sector as Korea’s new growth engine and a major force facilitating the economic recovery from the 1997 financial crisis (Chu 2009, 283).

5. The WVPTA was replaced by the Workers Vocational Capacity Development Act in 2005 (Ministry of Labour 2006, 291).