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The International Genfarance op Learning and Teaching & EDUCA 2010 (28 Detober, 2010, Banskos, The Land) Korea's Strategies in Education Management Dr. Hyun Chong Lee (President, Sangmyung University, Seoul, Korea) | New Century, new learner, and new learning The current concein over teaching and learning in the schools has been sparked ond shaped by the policy makers, parents, students, private sectors, and teachers all over the world, It is not surprising that there is a stiking congruence among the major educational leaders, The single word that has come to characterize their emphasis is excellence in education, While we welcome the emphasis on excellence in education, we seek its human reality rather than merely its bureaucratic image, In real schools, excellence is pursued by students and teachers who live complex lives, sometimes in trying circumstances(Beetrice and Ronald Gross. 1985) A wholehearted commitment to excellence will want to go beyond mete labels to nurture intellect broadly and compassionately, Since last three decades, many countries concerned about their ineffective educational system, student's low academic achievement, poor cuality of teachers’ teaching and the International competitiveness of higher education, The educational dimensions of the risk before every counties have been emply documented in testimony received by school effectiveness indicators such as international comparisons: of student achievement, functional illiteracy rate, average achievement of high school students, expectation of private sectors, end the demands for new skills, Because of these concems, meny countriss seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them What lies behind this emerging international sense of frustration can be described as both a dimming of indivduel learners’ expectations end the fear of losing ¢ shared educetional vision for every countries, However, on the positive side is the significant movement by political and educational leaders to research for solutions, This movement is ta improve teachina and learning in the classroom by the school reform and the managerial strategies in education management. ll Global agenda : Issues before the global learning community Children born today can expect to graduate from university in the year 2030, We firmly believe that every country's strategies in education management will prepare these children for far more effective lives in a far stronger country, In the year 2030, our living conditions in terms of technology, culture, value system, job market, atc will be totally naw area of 21 century, Accordingly, our children benefit when there is collective and participative planning, Taking a vision, tailoring activities, assigning milestone indicators end learners and teachers creates the framework for success, According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great thing in the world is not so much when we stand, as in what direction we moving, in these sense, our global education agenda before us could be Identified ten big changes, 1, Ten big shaagsz in a time of education paradign ehifte In @ tine of educational paradigm shifts, many changes in the school can be anticipated such changes as teaching methods, curriculum formats, school years, learning types, and academic related policies, 1) Sloss sehsole Education in the 21st century is influenced by the rapidly changing techno-socio-econamic environments, especially innovation of information and communication technologies influenced on classroom teaching and leaming One of the prodominent characteristics of these changes is so called '$-less schools, which stands for campusless schools, boolless libraries, and teacherless classroom 2) Century of learning mobility The Zist century is characterized by the major trends of ‘leering mobility’ The greater mobility of students, teachers, institutions and education programs, across national border is the major trends of global learning community, 8) Bdasetion for all The traditional concept of education is no longer applicable to every target learners, However, in the present education context, the possible learners from different backsrounds have equal right to lear. 4) Fron teashiag to learning No institution within cur society, certainly not government, has the capacity to control classroom because of methodological changes of leaming and teaching engineering, Previous provider's concept needs to be chenged into consumer based concept, Accordingly, teaching dominant concept will be changed into leering concept. EDGE SSSISES! GTIRSEIY, RENHIUE, cevneeiee Twenty years ago, the theme of so many of the education reform reports in the US was ‘back to basics’, In the year 2010, many countries are coping with the changed character of today’s students, the sccomplishments of those who teach them, and the need to build on the basics to meet today's new needs, Today's educational strategies should consider new world, new kids and new basics, appling to 3 societuknowledge media, knowledge net, and knowledge incubator) 6) New SR’2 1 maze underachiover Qne of the major issues in schooling is the issues of underachieving students, Nevertheless, the underachievers are increasing _ significantly according to teacher's or parent's expectations, If a child is bored or scared or unmotiveted or unchallenged, we say he or she is an underechiever This represents the failure of the teacher and of the system to stimulate, entice, free @ child's own instinct for growing and leering 7) Globel standard, glcbal svcraditation In the post-knowledge society, educational excellence is different from educational mediocrity because it emphasizes students’ ability to. think creatively and perform challenging tasks ‘rather than merely decad= and compute, Being able to recognize every country’s school achievements, using global stendardized evaluation as the sole measure of educational excellence confirm the countries’ academic achievement level, ©) The rebirth of edusatioasl conservetian : excel longs beyond equality Many countries pay emphasis on better quality education for middle — and upper middle class children than for low-income children. The education excellence is closely related to good teaching and excellent teachers, In these sense, the education's excellence movement is so politically powerful that virtually every government has proposed an education reform package and most have enacted one, This legislatures trend can be described as the rebirth of educational conservatisin 9) Bate age Generally specking, the contents of the education reform are incentives for outstanding achievement, career ladders, performence-based pay, new teacher education, revised graduation requirements, global competitiveness of college education, and new extra curricular, These reform agendas are linked to the issues between the accountability and the autonomy of formal schoolina(24 issues) 10) Pablie echool monopoly The lowered confidence in the ability of public education to produce demonstrable results appears to be associated with the growing sense of low quality of teaching and ineffectiveness of the school system, Many counties concein about the quality of education, especially public school education, in order to maintain the acceptable level of student's academic achievement, the stale generates their stat2 control over public school Il Educational Reform issues in Korea As | mentioned earlier, the changes of education environment ere inevitable in many countries, Accordingly, change in the function of education could be identified as follows: from provder's concept to student consumer's concept, from teaching oriented to leaming oriented, from administrative concept to strategic management concept, from national conceot to global concept, etc Educational reform issues in Korea are no exception from these major world-wide environment changes, 1. Taense of globalization Korean educational policies rapidly concein about new educational demand of the impact of globalization such as intemational schools, foreign students inflows, and foreign language education, To ensure educational access for the children of migrant workers and international marriage families, government is being required to devise new policies to impose inevitable changes to the whole system of education that meet current needs, As we know, globalization is accelerating movements of convergence as well as diversification, Accordingly, Korea is exeriencing a great chellenge from the globalization, The problems of foreign language education and intemetional schools are one of major policy issues among educators, Global stenderds and global system are another issues in the education sector as well 2, Taense of cuankity and auality Usually, the quality of education is defined by the outcomes, The most commonly accented educational outcomes now appears to be students’ academic achievement. Programme for international student assessment(PISA) is one of the representative indicators for the quality of education, These indicators ere closely related to resources, programmes, teachers’ orotessional competencies, and investments Guality is correlated to the equity issues because the criteria used to judge it are influenced by the complexity of teaching and leaming in terms of the nature of students, the climate of the classroom, the teacher's quality, etc Nevertheless, the maior factors affecting the quality educetion are appropriate investments and equal opportunities for every student, especially low-income students because these criteria ere very important for judging the success of educational policy, Quantitative growth of education could be the one of the negative factor to prevent the quality education, One of the major issues hes been the equity and quality issues in Korea since last 15 years, 2, Inease betiess autonony snd socountability Even there are many indications that the arguments for the accountability and school improvement, many Korean education policy makers have a tendency to deel with the accountability as the major school improvement element, In these sense, Korean government and policy makers pey more emphasis on the accountability rather then the school autonomy in order to maintain the certain level of the excellence in education through overall quality assurance system, However, school community's notion is different from that of the policy makers, 4, Inense of edusations] fover Peihans the most vivid illustration of Korea's obsession with education hes been the undesirable term ‘examination hell, In Korean society, an intense competition emerged for advancement into prestigious, upper-level institutions by obtaining high score on secondary school and university entrance examinations, Accordingly, the examination system is central to understanding the dynamics of the Korean educational system, It created a high-pressured narrow directed educational system and contributed to the role of education as a fundamental mechanism for social advancement, Thus, the most important factor affecting educational strategy in school management is the issue related to the educational fever or educetional zeal in Korea, Many educators complained that the examinations were not conducive to creativity, They distorted the teaching process since learning, especially in the upper grades, was geared to preparing for exam questions. So widespread was criticism of the exam system that the government made constant efforts to reform it, Nevertheless, education fever could be the maior factor related to the excessive dependence on overall shadow education W Korea's strategies in education management Korea's strategies in education management are centered around the policies focusing on the qualitative improvement of education, It is because quality of education is a driving force for the development of a nation and a dacisive factor that determines the future of the nation, Several principles of school policies in education management ae expanding educational opportunities, strengthening guarantee of perent's school choices, quality assurance through teacher evaluation and school evaluation, and enhancing the competitiveness of higher education notwithstending the importance of the reform of the Korea education system for the emerging knowledge based society, However, many of schools at the secondary level remain preparatory schools for the college entrence examinations, nevertheless, many schools lack autonomy and diversity in their school operations Korean govemment put efforts on several educational initiatives for effective management for public and private schools, For example, 300 project for the diversified high school system, three stage plan for enhancing autonomy in the college admission system, and implementation of school evaluation with teacher evaluation 1, The direstion and implonentatica for eshool autonomy In order to increase school autonomy, the ministry of education, science and technology set up the directions consisted of deregulations and empowerment by the reduction or the abolishment of the unnecessary regulations on school autonomy and the delegation of the power over education to the lower educational administrative institutions, Schoo! autonomy strategies are relative autonomy on curriculum management, and principals’ responsibility for diverse and quality education, Also, many guidelines for regulating school operation and the elementery and secondary education act is considering of deregulation, School evaluation and school accountability areas are more empowered school govemance councils, Another direction for school autonomy includes policy strategies related to the strengthening the responsibility of the superintendents of education such as the nomination and operation of model schools, policies for reducing achievement gap among the schools, and setting the national standards for education, etc, This schoal autonomy strategies have implemented since Apill 2008, First step was to abolisn the twenty nine guidelines including the internship progrem, after school program management, SAT related curiiculum management, physical education and security education, and subtext book management, etc, Following the first step, the thirteen acts and decrees have been redecorated step by step since 2008 D, MVGHILGKIG CAR IRARAGWOCSWiewenedt (AOU GS ieee RaNaN oR epeteR As individual schools have relative autonomy for their academic operation and curriculum management, high school records and GPA as university admission criteria should be reconsidered to be changed because the previous high school indicators used uniformly, Accardingly, Korean government has a willingness to change their centralized college admission policies including so called ‘3-no policy(individual college initiated written test, special admission by various donations, and selection based hich school rankina svstem) and Korean SAT system. Traditional single uniform criterion for college student selection policy need to be changed in terms of the education environment changes by the impacts of knowledge based society, , Bxpaneion of autononoue echool management and the complonentation for gokool equal ization policy Rapidly changing environment of schools in the knowledge based society urge government to revist strategic school management policies, For example, school equalization policy which was introduced in 1974 in order to release the extensive competition for entering top schools hes been the major critical issue among Korean education community, The debate on this policy become one of controversial issue between the conservative patt and liberal viewers Even this policy has been maintained over the last three decades, unproven beliefs and fears among educetors coexist with respect to the impact of the high school equalization policy, Korean goverment is beginning to reconsider this policy in order to enhance the school autonomy as well as to ensure diversified school system, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology introduced the constructive complementation tor the school equalization policy, These new policies are diversifying te high schools¢charter school, foreign language high school, science high school, boarding school, master high school, etc), establishing quality assurance mechanisms, providing vouchers for low-income families and establishing full autonomous public high school, 4, Policy for the diversified high school system Ministry of Education, Science and Technology initiated to establish "300 high school projects to impose on the school chcice in terms of various parents’ and students’ educational needs, Under this policy, government establish 300 high schools including 50 specialized vocational schocls(so called master high schools), 100 independent private high schools and 150 public boarding high schools, These different types of high schools have different educational purposes, Public boarding high schools are located in tural area and small size city where studerts come from low income families The purposes of this type of high school are providing scholarship for low income students and minimizing academic achievement gap between the haves and the have nots, Thus public boarding high schools ere the product of educational welfere policy. On the other hand, the purposes of specialized vocational schools are providing more specialized programs for the development of the students vocational talents and skills, This type of high schools aims at producing future skilled craftsmen in a wide range of fields, Another type of high school diversification model Is independent private high school, Independent private high school is different from the regular private high school in terms of curriculer_ management, teacher placement and overall academic operation This type of high school will be given full autonomous authority over school management activities such as curricular, academic operation end teacher placement, However, this type of high school doesnt have government financial support, This type of high school has a full responsibility for finance with their own resources 5, Raform of higher edhoation The greater mobility of students, teachers, institutions and education programmes across naticnal borders is an aspact of the intemationalization of education, which follows from policies and programmes designed to introduce an international, intercultural or worldwide dimension into the purpose, functions and provision of all levels of education, Especially, in 1esponse to conceins of policy issues and changes of higher education environments, higher education institutions need to be reallocating their resources and reexamining their traditional approaches to providing higher education, Reform agendas of higher education are international competitiveness and quality assurance issues, new student admission policies, ACE(Advancement of College Education) project, college education improvement project, curriculum development, etc Maior agendas of higher education reform have 3R(Reduction, Reallocation, Retrenchment), strategies for building up international competitiveness through guaranteeing autonomy in higher education and excellence in higher education, Undesirably, the underlined parent's notion on education from Kindergarten to high school is strategic preoaring for top universities’ entrance examination, In these social context, the success of higher education reform is the key strategic agenda to policy makers and Korean government, Nevertheless, the mast important worldwide concern in the 21st century is how to ensure their citizen's quality of life in the year to come, They properly realize the way to accomplish their goal is only through economic competitive advantages. These global trends significantly influence on Korean higher education system Korean government set up the priority of the higher education retorm to efficiently construct a knowledge producing structure contributing to. the creation, application and restructuring of knowledge, One of the priority of strategic manegement of higher education is designing a new paradigm on the requirements for becoming @ knowledge power and on the maximum use of relevant tools to this end Universities may be fortified and made more competitive by pursuing reform toward the four goals delineated below: 1) enhance sutonomy of universities 2) induce competition to strenathen educational and reseatch capabilities 3) provide intensive support to selected universities by government 4) university institutional accreditation system that socially authorizes the quality of university education 6, Century agenda for global edioational antererisez Increased international competition and cooperation has encouraged government to greater cohesion among higher education system worldwide, especially, labors mobility and brain drain of human capital mobility, This college mobility phenomenon will bring the utilization of the growth and the decey of universities, Accordingly, the functional changes of university education from ivory tower to educational industry will be maior phenomenon In this globel contest, century agenda for gloval educational enterprises is centered around the strateay for new functional allocetion, strategic issues between the confarmity vs diversity, 24 balance between autonomy and accountability, and 2C strategic approaches : cooperation and competitiveness, Maior policy issues are linked to maior reform activities end the socio-economic needs and the characteristics of the students, Policy issues =10 = of higher education in Koree could be tabulated as follows: Two feutes for Tearing Two functions academic research orlented retraining leaming oriented TMG Maels Two clienteles full time elite part time mass education Two sets of destinations Two approaches regular Higher education national worktelated continuing higher education Intemational Two es Of eaming blended leaming en-line or off-line learning 7, High priority izeuse in higher education High priorities of higher education policy In Korea are the reduction of the student/teacher ratio, government funding allocation policies, the admission policy and specialization policy of higher education, Another critical issue related to higher educetion policy is ‘teform monoooly syndrome’ of government reform policy, In soite of these high priorities of HE reform agendas, Korean higher educction has big environmental changes, One of these changes is the decreasing pool of student population, The decreasing pool of high school students is already beginning to have long-term demographic impacts, As long as the low birth rate continues and the aging population increases, new waves of reform agenda will be introduced 8, Stratemiez in teacher education Korean government has made policy efforts aimed at revitalizing public schooling and improving the quality of the teaching force since the 1990s, To improve the quality of teachers it takes a coherent policy effort that integrates the entie teaching career, Korea, relatively competitive individuals in the labor market aspire to enter teaching profession, Teaching Is considerably favored by Korean youth because of its distinct merit of guaranteed tenure Depending on what qualities of @ person should be viewed as constituting en “We ideal teacher, the goal of teacher preparation as well as the design of teacher training may vary, Related to the issues of teacher education in Korea, several issues could be identified, First issue is that there exists no agreed-upon national standard as to the education curriculum of teacher preparation, Another important issue is related to the issues of securing a high quality teaching forces, Third issue is the balance between supoly and demand of teachers. There is an undersupply of teachers for elementary schools and oversupply of secondary schools, Both oversupply and undersupply of teachers can cause the quality of teaching and quality issues of teachers, The strategy of teacher education in Korea is how to effectively design a flexible policy for teacher supply, In addition to these issues, the centralized teacher training and placement policy is a critical issue, Core budget planning and personal management and organizational supervision of schools should be made decision by individual schools rather then centrelized provisional or metropolitan office of education, One of the strategy for teacher education is the formulaton and implementation of effective teacher training programs including teacher preperation system and teacher preparation curriculum, The mast serious problem facing teacher-education institutions is their failure to convert excellent teacher candidates into excellent teachers, It is often pointed out that, while excellent students are admitted to teacher training institutions, those institutions fail to prepare them to be effective teachers, Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the management of practice teaching by lenathenina its period. diversifying its tyes. and makina it educationally meaningful, To resolve their problems, the strategies for teacher education has two pticrities: revising the curticular of teacher preparation institutions, adopting an accreditation system of teacher preparation institutions, restructuring the teacher preparation function of graduate schools of education, and integrating the departments of teacher colleges, These strategies in teacher education is undergoing now. Y Core issues for Korea's educational future - A country of educational miracle : Korea Many OECD countries cell Korea as a country of educational miracles . This means that Korea has parent's educational zeal with productive educational a1g + fever, Parent's educational zeal can trigger the boosting of student's academic achievement as well as increasing high level of collece-going needs, The important issues or task for Korea's educational future are rooted in parent's beliefs in education, overall concept toward educational goal and cote policy issues of education, The following core issues for Korea’ future must be considered to maintain effective school system and effective teaching and learning, ‘education for all’ imnlies priority for the educationally under served enhencing the international dimension of higher education setting Korea as "educational welfare society, an track for sustainable development renewing the structures of higher education system and production in a knowledge intensive direction Implementing institutional reform aimed at strengthening public confidence both nationally and globally in institutions For example, university reform policies began to implement in full-scale both at the govermentelly-led level and at the institutionally-led level since the early 1990s, Recently, the higher education envronment has changed for the most more rapidly than expected, This threat could be the driving forces for escalating reform activities, Recent reform strategies include professional school reform, issues of international competitiveness, accreditation issues, learning mobility issues, and financial allocation issues, (balance between brain drain and brain gain) Related to secondary education. the strategic policy issues are issues of college admission system including 3-no's policy, , school autonomy issues, governance system for the affective schooling, issues between the supplier centered model to the consumer centered model, issues related to diversified model, and school evaluation end teacher evaluation issues. Even Korea has these reform issues, Lee's government Intoduced positive reform agenda as follows + - educational initiatives for strengthening public education and efforts to reduce demand for shadow education ~ educational initiatives for diversifying the criteria in the college admission system ~ introducing self-directed learning course as a new path to the college admission system = enhencing autonomy in educetion as a starting measure for the innovation of govemance of education a413 4 ~ Strengthening ond expanding school evaluation and quality control for effective teaching - installing teacher evaluation system ss a mechanism for school accountability The educational reform preparing for the changing society will be the endless task for Korean government and policy makers, When we can minimize critical perspectives on educational reform. Korean society will be one of the educational leading country in the world and be able to build uo the country of educational miracle References Beatrice and Ronald Gross(1985), Ths Great Schoo! Dabaia, PP281-208, PP271-280 Chong Jee Lee@008), Reflection on tha Mew Government's Policy initiatives for Schoo! Faform, KERA International Conference 2008 Korean Educational Research Association Gap Suns Kin(2009). Raform Models for Teacher Education Systam in Kora (unpublished report), Korean Educational Develoo ment Institute Houston, D. & Maikw, A.A(2005), Systams Parsoactiva on External Quality Assurance : Implication for Micro-States, Quality in Higher Education, 11(3), PP213-226 Hyun Chong Lee(2009), The 2ist Cantury University Visions and Policy Issues in KoreXunpublished article), East Asia Canterence, Tokyo, Japan. Hyun Chong Lee(2006), Thseries and Araciicas of University Reform in the Transition period, Seoul, Munweum Publishing Hyun Chong Lee(2006), University Evaluation and Accraditation System in Korea, Seoul : Muneum Publishing Hyun Chong Lee(2000), University in the 2tst Gantury, Seoul: Maneum Publishing Joo Ho Lee(2008), From equity fo atvarsification(unp ub lished article). McGraw, Bang(2005), OECD Persosctives on Korean Educational Achievement, 60th Anniversary of Korean Education Conference Michael J, Seth(2002), Eoucaton Faver, University of Hawaii Press, PP140-148 OECD(2008), Fatucation at a Glanca: OECD indicator, 2008 Robert B Everhart(1982), Tha Public Schoo! Monapoly. Cambridge Massachusetts, PP 189-198 pgs

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