New Mission for New Time in Korean Higher Education

Abstract

In the 1990s, South Korea (Korea hereafter) was confronted with a new social environment, characterized as globalization and knowledge-based economy. In order to respond to the new environment, there have been considerable reform efforts in Korea higher education over the past two decades. Universities in Korea accordingly transformed their educational structures and contents while becoming familiar with policy buzz words such as change, reform, restructuring, and innovation. Subsequent to an educational reform fever for globalization and knowledge-based economy, Korean higher education entered into another stage of mega-turbulence. There was a strong tension about the sustainability of university education connected to a new social environment which is distinguished from the one in the twentieth century. Recognizing this atmosphere, the author, an insider within Korean higher education and a critical researcher in the field of Educational Policy Studies, writes that she feels the responsibility to answer the question, "what is a dominant policy discourse in current Korean higher education?'' The author identifies emerging policy issues in Korean higher education and looks into how a dominant policy discourse is created and operated as a policy imperative in Korea. The hope is that this short study will reveal a policy response of Korean higher education toward new social change, while providing the source of the Korean case for the development of comparative and international education.