Vocational Education and Training

Vocational education and training (VET) has been regarded as a pre-requisite for a country to successfully compete in the world market of rapid economic and technological change. VET, as a main supplier of skilled workforce, can play a crucial role in national economic development. For example, initial VET in Korea made a great contribution to economic growth, especially during the period 1960–1980, by supplying skilled workers and technicians required to implement a series of the 5-year economic development plans. As the so-called Knowledge Economy1) Jung, J.H. (2000). The knowledge-based economy and the labor market in Korea. Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade.View
2) KRIVET and ADBI (2006). Workforce development for a knowledge economy: Report of the international workshopView
3) WB and OECD (2001). Korea and the Knowledge-based Economy: Making the transition.View prevails, the importance of continuing VET has been emphasized along with the discussions on lifelong learning1) Han, S.H. (2010). Lifelong learning and adult education policyView
2) WB (2003). Lifelong learning in the global knowledge economy: challenges for developing countries.View.

As primary education expanded substantially during the 1990s and 2000s^[1]Universal primary education (UPE) was emphasized at the World Conference on Education for All in 1990, and adopted as an International Development Target in 1996 and as a Millennium Development Goal from 2000. This strongly influenced donor agencies to focus their support on achieving UPE. and youth unemployment problems became serious in developing countries, policy interests in initial VET among developing countries have increased. As the structures of industry and occupation change due to fast changing technology and skills requirement and globalization, developing countries are faced with urgent need for improving continuing VET to enhance and maintain their workers’ productivity and competitiveness.

From the perspective of using VET as a crucial policy tool for national economic development, the key question is ‘how to design and implement VET policies?’ To answer this question, four key issues of VET policy need to be considered:-
(i) from what level of schooling should VET be provided?;
(ii) what are the most appropriate ways of VET delivery (school-based, vocational training institute–based, or employer-provided)?;
(iii) who should provide VET (government or private sector)?; and
(iv) what institutional arrangements are necessary?^[2]Refer to Sub-theme 3 "Institutional Arrangements".

Korea experienced very rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s by rigorously implementing export-oriented development strategy with a focus on the manufacturing sector. Due to fast increase in wage-employment opportunities in the formal economy, there was high demand for skilled workers and technicians. 

To meet the manpower demand the Korean government introduced national vocational education curriculum in high school and extended 3-year vocational high schools into 5-year vocational schools^[3]5-year vocational school provided 3-year of vocational high school course and 2-year of vocational junior college course together. in 1963, based on the reasoning that at least middle school education was required for employees to understand skills and knowledge necessary to perform as skilled workers. Because formal vocational education system alone could not solve skilled worker shortage problems, the government introduced vocational training system1) Choi and Ji. (2014). TVE-led economic development in Korea and its implications for developing countries. KIET Occasional Paper 91.View
2) KRIVET (2013). Vocational education and training in Korea.View
3) Ra and Kang. (2012). Vocational training system for a skilled workforce. KSP module.View in 1967 to provide training opportunities to unemployed youth without skills in more flexible and prompt ways through employers’ involvement.^[4]Vocational training system was designed and introduced based on two rationales: (i) due to rapid increase in demands for skilled workers, Korea needed a flexible VT system in terms of training curriculum development, training period, and teacher preparation and recruitment; and (ii) since employers are in the best position of knowing skill demand changes, their active participation in VT was essential. In the formal education system, it generally takes about 3 years to develop new curriculum and textbooks, 3 years to train skilled workers in vocational high schools and 4 years to prepare vocational high school teachers. In the 1960s it was necessary to introduce the vocational training system to quickly respond to rapidly increasing demand for skilled workers and technicians. Vocational training system played important roles in training and supplying skilled workers and also in providing second chances to youth without marketable skills^[5]For example, vocational high schools supplied 48% of skilled workers and vocational training system did the other 52% during the third economic development plan period.. 

The Ministry of Education (MOE) was responsible for general and vocational education of school-age cohort and the Ministry of Labor was responsible for the on- and off-the-job training for unemployed youth and incumbent workers. Vocational education policy and vocational training policy had been coordinated by Economic Planning Board (EPB)Han, S.H. (2014). Operation of the economic planning board in the era of high economic growth in Korea.KSP Module.View^[6]It is integral to have well-functional coordination mechanism among economic development and VET policies to get the highest policy performance. In Korea, EPB played an important role in linking other ministries’ works. In fact the Korean government had already recognized the severe labor shortage when designing the first economic development plan and thus had planned to introduce vocational training system in the early 1960s. However, it took several years to finally introduce vocational training system due to delayed negotiations and decision-making on the selection of responsible government ministry and agency, structure and implementation mechanism of the system and finance among ministries., a super ministry headed by Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, which formulated national economic development plans and coordinated related policies implemented by other ministries. 

As the Korean economy has grown toward more advanced levels, Korea has changed VET policy focus from high school to junior college and from initial vocational trainingChae and Chung. (2009). Pre-employment vocational education and training in Korea. WB.View to continuing training in the mid-1990s. In the 1960s and 1970s when the training market was not well established, Korea adopted a strong government-led approach, in which the government encouraged and obligated enterprises to provide in-plant training to their employees and provided public vocational training. Since 1995 Korea changed her strategy to a more demand-side oriented approach^[7]Refer to Sub-theme 2 "Continous Vocational Education and Training Policy". in which employers, employees, and unemployed can make their decisions on vocational training (VT) based on their own needs.

Since the mid-1990s as the industrial structure of Korea was being transformed into technology-intensive one, the focus of vocational education was shifted to junior college. In addition, vocational training for up-skilling became the main mode and training areas and modes were diversified. 

Several supporting mechanisms^[8]Refer to Sub-theme 3 "Institutional Arrangements". have played critical roles in enhancing the performance of the VET system. Qualification has functioned as a standard for assessing the performance of VET programs and providers by connecting the VET curriculum with skill demands. Quality assurance mechanism has contributed to guaranteeing certain level of quality of VET services. Information on the performance of VET programs and institutes and on job opportunities have enabled VET consumers (individuals, firms) to make right decisions on their investment in VET and promoted constructive competition among VET providers which leads to quality improvement (and more). In addition, VET funding mechanism, employment service, and career guidance systems have played important roles.

Key success factors can be summarized as follows:- 
(i) combinations of formal vocational education and non-formal vocational training;
(ii) systematic match between VET policies and national economic development plansPark, Y.B. (2014). Economic development and vocational education and training in Korea. KRIVET.View (changes of the economy)^[9]Refer to Table 2 in Sub-theme 1 "Initial Vocational Education and Training Policy" (C. Checking Points, p.2)., which contributes to making virtuous circle of the expansion of VET system and high demand for skilled workforce;  
(iii) strong government leadership and coordination among government ministries; (iv) institutional arrangements that promote the performance of VET systems.