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Development of Higher Education in the Republic of Korea

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Education in South Korea

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Abstracts

Higher education in the Republic of Korea has experienced substantial quantitative growth over the past 70 years since the liberation in 1945. The current college enrollment rate, the ratio of high school graduates to college freshmen stands at 80%, which is among the highest in the world. The expansion of higher education opportunities led to the development of individuals and the achievement of nation’s political, social, economic, and arts and cultural development. However, unlike many other Western countries, where the governments took the initiative in establishing and providing supports for universities, private schools played a leading role in the development of higher education in the Republic of Korea as the government lacked financial resources. The growth of higher education in ROK was attributable to the Korean people’s passion for education and the devotion of parents to their children’s education. In order for Korean universities to develop into globally competitive universities, the desirable relationship between the government and the universities should be established first in the direction toward promoting university autonomy. In this chapter, we examined the background of major higher education policies of each period, analyzed how the policies were implemented, what kind of conflicts occurred in policy implementation process, and what the policy outcomes and future tasks are.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Don-Hee Lee, Sam-Geun Kwak, Jae-Woong Kim, Dong-Joon Park, Jung-Ho Yang & Myung-Hee Lee

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  1. Don-Hee Lee
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  2. Sam-Geun Kwak
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  3. Jae-Woong Kim
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  4. Dong-Joon Park
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  5. Jung-Ho Yang
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  6. Myung-Hee Lee
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Correspondence to Don-Hee Lee .

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Lee, DH., Kwak, SG., Kim, JW., Park, DJ., Yang, JH., Lee, MH. (2022). Development of Higher Education in the Republic of Korea. In: Education in South Korea. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5229-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5229-5_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-5228-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-5229-5

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